


Reuinited *Yumikuri*

by chiyokintou



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Civil War, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Gay, Historia, I love her, Lesbians, M/M, War, War Story, Yuri, christa - Freeform, hellahomo, shithead lesbian, ymir - Freeform, ymir is a fucking bitch, yumikuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:07:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiyokintou/pseuds/chiyokintou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For hundred years there had been a wall between Rose and Maria. Now the government decided to break down the wall but the people have not yet forgotten the war. They still have this war going on between the poor and rough Maria and richer and disciplined Rose. Now Ymir, the one from the poorest side of Maria has made her way into Rose's Christa's heart. The only question is how long can christa carry the title 'traitor'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breaking the wall.

War changes everything.

The grey sky above our heads started feeling like home.

We couln’t see what was in the sky; we wouldn’t notice on time if bombs flew above our heads, if our neigboors were invading us. Yet for all we know there could be a magical looking bird, right above our heads.

Even though all these things could be seen in the blue sky, no one trusted him.  The blue sky seemed like a lie, spreading as far as they knew was the world. The blue sky couldn’t be trusted, to them it was like an illusion over the grey one.  It didn’t fit their lives. It didn’t fit anything.

Today there was snow. There were little clothes and the soft substance of snow only made them think of a nice woolen jacket even more.  The sky was blue. The whole world was light colored. It hurt their eyes.

Christa had once liked blue and white most. They resebled her. It fitted her happy personality.

War changes everything.

But the war was over;  that’s what a paper in the presidents room said.  No one believed the war really was over. Christa’s friends didn’t, her foster parent didn’t, so automatically she didn’t believe it either.

Just like the citizens had made the war up, they would also break the peace down.  There was really no such thing as a signed war;  it were neighbors. A big wall between parts of a country.  Once someone was allowed to pass the only answer was death.

 

Christa looked up from her book; pretending to read became hard when fear takes over your body.  Men in uniforms were breaking down the wall.  The ones from Maria on their side, the ones from Rose on hers.  They had the same uniform now. It looked weird. The new peaceful sign made most want to hurl. She liked the view of the pretty new sign, the designer had done well, yet she would be more careful than saying that out loud.

The men breaking down the wall were working in complete silence; if one said something a fight would break out; head would fall. The presidents had worked together and decided to become one, yet even christa; optimistic christa; didn’t believe it could happen. Maria and Rosa living together. There was no way. The only way they’d stop fighting was killing all and everyone from both sides.

“Hey girly!”  Christa looked up and nodded. “This aint the place to be sightseein”  

“Sir, this is my favorite place to read a book”

“Not now anymore it isn’t”  Christa watched as the man walked up to her “Lis’n,  the wall has fallen, you’re obviously Rose or Sina ya see”   She knew that; her skin was soft and clear, her eyelashes long with a little bit of make up on, her dress clean.   “The kids of Maria aint nothin like that, they’ll rip yer pretty dress off ya see”   

But she had never even seen a Maria kid. Did they all have dark hair?  Mikasa and Eren did too. Though there were some gossips they ran away from Maria, and someone took them in.  So maybe skin and hair was the same? Just the clothes.  Were they that poor?  Did they have enough food, and windows in their houses? Heaters and sweaters?  

Christa wanted have a fair role in this war. No one would think she was spoiled. Yet if these kids were all wood and stone, she was the snow; soft.. a little bit cold, a little light and a little lonely.

Snow falls slowly, you can see it coming. Snow never comes with thunder, snow is soft, if only hurts if you stay in too long. It only hurts because you think it’s sweet.  It’s not mad, it’s not screaming and crying.. it’s still a little sad. Everyone loves to look at snow; think about snow. No one really likes to lie in snow,  naked, vulnerable.  Everyone thinks they do, but after 5 minutes of laying in snow they quickly search for some fire.

 

There would be a public school. All Maria or Rose only school’s would be closed down and a public one would be put in the place of it.  Christa was not sure if they wanted all the kids dead or if they were just kind of dumb.  Yet the president thought it would  be a  good idea to decide which families went to which school; half Maria, half Rose.

Christa hoped she wouldn’t be in class with too many Maria kids. The only thing she knew was that they had bad manners and that they were dirty. One or two kids from Maria would be fine. Just to see how they were. If they were darker skinned, if they smelled like dead animals and ate like pigs.  She just wanted to know if the rumours were true. Because even after the wall fell; she hadn’t seen any Maria kids. When she did, she was pretty sure it would be a dead one. Or a killing one.  That was how Maria kids thought; that was the thing they wanted to do with clean Rose kids wasn’t it?

 

Christa stood up and walked home again. Where hanji was waiting for her to tell her in which school she was placed.  Christa’s heart skipped a beat. She was worried.  “Let’s see.. You’re in class with about 21 people.”   A small class, which seemed smart because fights would happen. For sure. No doubt.   “ Oh look! do you remember Eren, mikasa and the funny little blond kid?”

“Armin?”

“Yeah yeah, like that boy, anyway, they are in your class!”  I smiled, feeling somehow reasured though now our class getting into fights was a fact. They always got into fights.  “And Jean kirsthein?  is he a friend of yours?”

Friend was a big word but christa knew him.  Together iwth the fact it wouldn’t just me Maria and Rose fighting, it would be everyone.  “Yeah, I know him”

Hanji smiled securing and handed Christa the letter from school.  Her mind wasn’t all too clear. Reading it all would take quite a while. Still she kicked off her schoes, poured herself a cup of thee and sat down on the hard kitchen chair.  

She was in class B6.  Whatever that meant she didn’t know; she highly doubted it even had anything to do with her scores.  She scanned the names quickly. There was no Rose or Maria on the paper. She had to guess who was from her side.  Some names just sounded familiar. Some names completely new. Yet the numbers didn’t match and she realized she wouldn’t figure out who was Maria from staring at the paper. Everyone had a picture. They were taken before they announced they’d be mixing up the schools for ‘freedom and peace’.  Eren and Jean’s pictures made her smile silently; they looked really mad.  

Then there were Armin, a girl named hannah and Marco bodt, all smiling nicely. Marco seemed sweet, she had never seen him around Rose, but he looked so clean and mannered she was sure he was from around here.

There was a girl named annie, looking emotionless like mikasa.

Two bold guys and one girl with crumbs on her face. She grinned, the bread crumbs somehow making her look happier instead of foolish.

“And?”  Hanji yelled, while shaking a bottle and then staring at it intensely.   

“They seem okay?”

“Christa remember..” two blue eyes staring up,  a scientist proudly holding up her bottle “There is always more to something than that seems”

Christa knew that.  She knew that and wanted to figure the whole thing out, it just wasn’t easy.  She was curious like hanji right now. Who was Maria? It was hard to see.   

Two older looking boys named Reiner and Berthold seemed Maria. It was a wild guess though. Mainly Reiner just looked tougher; as if he’d seen hell.

Then there was one empty spot. A white square saying ‘no picture’. Ymir.  Ymir. Just Ymir, no surname.  No picture.  

She was Maria. She as sure of it. No Rose kid would have no Surname or picture. Anyway.. was Ymir a girl or a boy? Ymir was a boy name right? A mythological man.  She guessed it was a boy, dirty looking, black hair, agrassive and from Maria.

Her fantasies created an ymir. She blushed as her fantasies had made him rather handsome. She tried to change it but the view had been tattood on her eyelid. Handsome, dark agrassive.  AND from maria, she reminded herself.  Still smiling. It was wrong to think about things like that. She knew it. There was no peace yet, there would be fights, there would be people called traitors if they talked with Maria’s.  It was war.

 

* * *

  
  


There were two rows of tables. Two person tables.  Which meant that Mikasa and Eren sat next to each other, and christa was nice enough to take place next to armin. This was probably best for the teacher too; he wouldn’t accadently look her way when saying armin’s name. She had always felt bad for the boy when people did that. If someone was girly, even for a girl, it was christa. That meant armin was girly for a girl too, and he wasn’t even a girl.

Jean sat in front of us, he was about as ease with the whole situation as Eren was. They both cursed under their breath and bolded their fists tightly. Biting their lip everytime they looked at a Maria, who were sitting in the other row. As for away as they could be right now. Though the presidents treats had been quite impressing, as no one made a move to kill the other yet.  

If looks could kill though; a lot of people would have been dead. I’d have to say the survivors would be Mikasa, Eren, Jean and Annie. Because hell they could glare. They glared holes through each other.  Reiner and Berthold, would have won if we were able to kick and punch; it was obvious. Yet now they didn’t take part in the everlasting glaring. Reiner smiled as if he was comfortable with the whole situation, his hand on his partners shoulder, who was complete opposite from him; as awkward and fearing as was possible.

“that guy in front of the Maria row doesn’t look so bad though” Christa whispered, looking at a neat and freckled boy she remembered as marco. She had thought he was Rose at first.  Since all Maria were disgusting. Mad. Agrassive.  

Thinking about it, we looked more agrassive and mad than they did. Of course that was just to make us even more mad. And disgusting wasn’t the right word either; they just looked bit poorer.

“Yeah.. I thought he was Rose”  Armin mumbled. Same as she did.

They earned a glare from Jean. He seemed as if he was about to kill them if they didn’t shut up. His anger limit was almost reacher “Can you stop fucking talking as if their fucking humans?”

they are human,  christa wanted to say.  But she didn’t. They would be the bad guy if she did. She would be the traitor. She wasn’t.

“Okay.. Jean, calm down, they’ll have your heads”

“I’ll calm down if those fucking bitches leave the Rose side!”  Jean yelled, having all eyes on him now, including the teacher’s.  The teacher silently stood up, as if this was his sign that he needed to get started.

Quickly he wrote his name on the board  Levi acklerman

Then, bored, man, and dangerous he glared around the class  “we’re missing one fucking brat” it was a sigh.  Only then I realized there was no Ymir. No handsome dark and stinking boy.  

He wrote something down and then stood again. He was small. There was a platform for the teachers to stand on yet he was still small.  “Listen up you shits. There are a few rules here; First; you do whatever the fuck I say. Second; I make up rules as I go because you do whatever the fuck I say anyway. Thirth;  No fighting or I will kick your ass”  

Eren snorted “Yeah ri-”  Before another words was spoken Eren was laying on the floor, a feset on his face, face on the cold ground.  “If you Rose brats think your stupid rule about not hitting children still aplies you are dead wrong!  This isn’t a task we can do hand in hand picking daisies”  

somewhere in the distant Maria side I heard  “they had that rule?”  

Shocked, I focusses on Mister Acklerman again  “No fucking fighting, no cursing and no bullying. Have I made myself clear?”   
A weak “yeah”  came from the class.

“Fucking hell.  Speak with two words.  Have I made myself fucking clear?”

“Yes sir”  My heart was beating faster.  If all the teachers were like this.. the whole mixed classes might work out without killing. Maybe the president really did have brains. Maybe he could overcome the wall, that was to be found, even in this room.  

“now does anyone know where Ymir is?”

  
  


No one did.

and the next day there was no Ymir either.  Christa spend the school days trying to ignore the angry mumbling from Jean and Eren. Trying to get on Levi’s good side. Looking at the Maria side. How much different were they? Did they do anything weird?

The only weird thing she saw was that Berthold and Reiner sometimes stroke each others hands lovingly; as if they were in love. Now that was something Christa had never seen happening before. Two boys that close. The closest boys she knew were Armin and Eren, but they had mikasa. They didn’t hold hands without any reason whatsoever.    
Later on she found out that the Maria kids did know where Ymir was. And shockingly enough she heard them whisper  “what does ymir  think  she’s doing, she’s going to get caught by the police; her time of being a wild beast is over.”

To which Berthold replied with “maybe we should look for her”  

THey both agreed that that wasn’t the best idea. I was slightly disappointed.  My curiosity was only growing. A girl with a boy name. Wild. Getting caught by the police.  The girl sounded like the description of everything she heard about the Maria people.

 

In the breaks Christa went to the library and studied. Not things she needed to know for class. No only the things she wanted to know. Things people wouldn’t tell her the truth about; things that were only now to be found.

The history of Maria. How people lived before the wall was finished. How they lived when they all lived together as one.  

She heard screams and yell from time to time. In the two days of school she wondered how many people had died from time to time. On the news she heard about people dying. Then again she also heard interviews with people that realized they were far family with one of the other side.

Everything was a mess. She didn’t mind. She liked the fact everyone was forced to live together, even if she would never admit it. It was like a rush. It was war. It was war and no one could do a thing. People looked powerless. People were forced to sit next to the ones they were at war with. It was war;  they gave enemies a gun, put them in one room and told them that if they shot each other they would be hung.  Put two enemies in a stuck elevator and see what happens. Christa was afraid. She really was, but she didn’t hate it.

 

“YOU FUCKING BITCH!” christa closed her book and walked outside at the sound of Eren’s voice.  Annie in front of him, a bored expression. By now I already knew; we had no chance with Maria’s, they were hard. Hard as stone, black diamonds.

“If you want to fight make it quick, I’ve got little time”   She looked at her nails. Her face almost hidden in her grey hoodie, her weird witch like nose sticking out.

“I’LL KILL YOU FUCKING WEAKLINGS! GET OUT OF ROSE”   Before we could blink eren was thrown to the ground. His head hitting the stone ground, a knife in his neck. But in Annie’s neck was another knife. Mikasa. Mikasa. I had forgotten, Mikasa was the only one crazy strong like the Maria’s. It was just another argument for the fact she was raised there.   “Get away from Eren”  I red her lips. She whispered it. The girls glares probably able to burn the whole school down if they kept it going. But soon a teacher had a hold of both of them. And Eren, who was long forgotten too. Else he would probably kill whoever dared to touch Mikasa. That’s how they had always been.

Christa looked away. The whole thing was just more reason for the rest to start fighting too. She was already surprised Jean hadn’t killed anyone yet. Then again if he were to kill anyone it would  still most likely be Eren. Jean was arrogant and annoyed. But not hateful enough to actually kick someones ass.

The worst thing I had seen Jean do was glare at Sweet and Freckled, Jean was staring at him himself, then when Marco noticed and smiled kindly he glared mumbling something close to “Maria faggot”  a word that she had never heard. A word that scared her. 

It wasn’t that bad. Seriously, people were dying everywhere. The goverment was taking people’s head. Yet the freckled boy had looked sad. Like his heart had been broken. It was horrible to see; specially since it reminded Christa of how she was supposed to hate the Maria’s. She did. She really did. Only at moments like this she realized how unreasonable they were all being. Sitting so far apart. Having sides in the cafeteria. Not finding Maria’s in some places of Rose, and probably also the other way around.

They deserved it; she knew that.  They were reckless. They had cockily drifted away from Rose, finding themselves better. For years Rose had been living in fear of the terrorism Maria was capable of. The terror they thought was reasonable. They had been afraid for too long; even though they were the decent humans. There was no way Christa or any of them would change their mind just because they seemed human; there was no way.  


	2. Fire in those eyes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ymir's a badass bitch.  
> Christa reads some books.

Christa remembered the day ymir showed up very well.   
A part of the shopping mall had burned down that day. It was the first real big announcement. Of course some people had fought, some people had died.  Yet this.. It was bigger. As if war was taking it's turn. Weather it was a turn towards freedom or a painful death stayed unknown.  Everything stayed unknown. Like everything was gone with the wind. People died like the fire had done in the snow, it was meant to happen. 

They had been in school for a little over a week. Eren yelling, Mikasa calming him, Armin worried, Jean still spoiled,  the freckled boy nervously looking at Jean's expensive jacket, Annie angry, Reiner and Berthold sitting closer than boys should sit. It were long days. Interesting. Levi had hit Eren and Jean multiple times.  The Maria's seemed to handle the whole thing better. Because they weren't brought down.         

The snow seemed everlasting. Hands purple and white; shivering.  Eren and Mikasa had one pair of gloves. They both wore one and held the others cold hand. For the sake of warmth. To survive.  Armin had no gloves. When they came into class Eren would warm armin's hands. Blow warmth on them, rub them and hold them.

Christa envied them. Christa; with her light brown warm coat and her white cloves. Her perfect gloves with a shiny ribbon on it.  She wished someone would warm her hands after they got the same colour  nature had.  She wished her asshole father hadn't given her all the money they needed so she could buy a coat. It was halfhearted love. No. Not love. Just responsibilities. He had had sex with another women, he had gotten her pregnant, now he was going to pay his sin's away.  Pay for staying out of contact with me. Even if Hanji could eat enough meat now, even if she could put the heater on.  Hanji was being paid to take care of christa and it hurt. 

She wondered what her life would be like if she was the daughter of her Father's wife. She would be living like his other children. In the middle of high class Rose.  A king sized bed, Maid's to bring warm soup with meat, privet school so she didn't have to associate with Maria kids. That would be bad for both, even christa got yelled at for having more expensive clothes. Jean got into fights because of it. They weren't even high class like her father's children. His kids probably had bluer eyes and blonder hair. They would be whiter, because they would never have to go out. 

Thinking about it she looked at the tanned Maria kids and looked down. They probably had to work hard. All through the summer they stood on the land, the smell of pigs filling their nose while the sun burned their skin; probably.  
  
As christa was thinking about those shameful things the doors of the classroom slammed open. Everyone's heads turned at the noise.  There were three cop, built,  a green blue and white uniform on. The new sign of their country; wings; on their back.    
They were holding an incredibly pissed off, tall girl. Her hair in front of her eyes, still you could see her killer look through the dark locks. Freckles had never looked scary before. Never had they looked powerful instead of cute. It seemed as if time went slowly as she was pushed into the classroom, a hit against her head. She glared. Threw her hair over her shoulder and then spit on the cops shoe.   

Christa knew then, they had really spend a week to find her,to get her to school. It took 3 built men to keep her from whatever she was planning to do when not in school.  Christa's heart beat faster than it ever had done before as she cop kicked the girl, the spit that was on his show now on the ripped jeans. Jeans. Christa thought admiring. She rarely saw a girl in jeans.

"Seems like trouble arrived" Levi walked up to the girl, a bored look on his face as the cops held her tightly. Her eyes held fire as she glared into the room. A cocky smirk on her face.  She's amuzed, christa thought in shock.

The men had to be intimidated by her. She was taller than Levi. A women, taller than him.   "Listen you shithead-" 

"What is it short-"

A kick against her face. Blood.  A heart that stopped; christa's.   
Two cops pushing her into the floor. The other stepping on her head. Christa looked away.  "Listen you little girl, this man here" levi " was one of humanities strongest soldiers. All teachers here were in the army, so don't try anything funny"  The cop was right. She would die here, probably. 

"I bet he wouldn't listen to you shitheads either"   

Levi chuckled  "let her go"  He liked the girl. It seemed. He saw something in her eyes. The darkness, the boredom, the strength.  "Now listen you bitch, you're not your own boss anymore. My lessons come together with pain, but I think you've had your fair portion of that

Ymir chuckled almost evily  "these bitches have been living in fucking heaven"  Christa had never heard so much cursing. 

Ymir sat down on Jean's table, her legs wide open. Levi decided to let them be for now.  "So what's with the sides hn?"She smirked and looked at the Maria side.  "These Rose kids that scary, Reiner, Annie?"   Both mumbled a soft  "bitch".  She replied to the insult with a greeting nod; as if that was her nickname. Everyone loosened up; ymir was already messing everything up. This won't be the last time, believe me. 

Ymir sat down on the chair next to Jean, to which Jean shot up as if he'd been bitten  "Fuck off, I aint sitting next to no stinking Maria"

Ymir smelled her armpit and then pulled up both her eyebrows and shoulders " I don't smell  _that_  bad"  

Christa almost laughed, Jean didn't see the humor in it all and hit his table.  "You scum!"  
Then within seconds ymir was close to Jean, nose to nose, a smirk on her face, ymir was just a little bit shorter, tall for a women, she seemed even taller when close to a men, she seemed more powerful. Jean was probably shitting his pants already. He wasn't as though as he acted "Don't ya dare to talk to me cuz I've never seen your kind with your damned expensive shoes survive. "   and it was the truth. Jean's money would be his death. It would he christa's too. THey both wished they weren't warm. That they-   

"what the fuck you bi-"   Christa quickle stood up. Jumped in between them  

All eyes were on her  "I-"  she at ymir. As if that was comforting  "I'll switch seats with Jean, if that okay.. sir Ackerman?"    Levi nodded.

Ymir grinned brightly  "daaayyumm"  

"W-what?"

"You" Christa blushed. Her thoughts going everywhere and no where while Levi calmed the class down and started the lesson. Christa sat in tension, a fast heartbeat. The women next to her looked like she didn't even believe she was 'doing' school. She indeed didn't really fir behind the school table. She didn't fit in rose. In rose even the boyish girls wear skirts. The only acception she had seen was hanji. Hanji never really went out though.  Yet Annie wore tights and ymir wore jeans. Ripped, dark jeans.  A shirt that most likely belonged to a boy on top of it and a black vest on top of it.  Words christa had gathered over the years rang in her mind. 

 _"maria kids don't know when to stop. They are aggrasive, kill others for fun. They are dirty. If you have money on you they will steal it. They can't be trusted. That's why the wall it so important. It's because Roses trust too much. Never trust Maria's.. Well.. not like you'll ever meet one."_  
  
She looked at ymir and realized that she fit the explanation best. Darker haired, darker skinned, angry, poor.  Black spots on her arms, her face black and blue. Her hair messy. Of course; she had just fought.   
Christa was aware of the women sitting quite close. too aware. Too close.   Then, when Mr Ackerman let them work alone ymir held out an hand and mumbled  "I'm ymir"  Christa didn't take the hand. She didn't quite dare to touch a Maria. Specially not when people were watching. 

 " Christa"  she softly whispered instead.

Ymir took back her hand and smiled  "pretty"

"tha-" COuld she say that to a Maria? That word. The word that stood for thankfulness?  Probably not. She shouldn't.   
  
So they sat next to each other. In silence. Well.. not in silence but without really saying anything. Ymir tended to make a lot of useless noise. Grunt, sigh, groaning, letting her head fall on the table and getting scolded for a look she had on her face. Ymir made the room live. She sat on Rose side yet had Maria written all over her face. If Marco had sat next to Jean.. they would have probably befriended each other, no one would have noticed he wasn't Rose. 

Christa imagined that as ymir got closer they looked even sillier. WIth armin it had been two blonde model students. Now it was her.. her blonde tiny body next to tall ymir, rough and dark ymir. Ymir that smelled, but didn’t smell bad. SHe smelled like ymir. No other way to discribe it. No use in trying to do so. Ymir Smelled like Ymir. Christa didn’t mind that smell, to her own shame. Because it was nothing like pig smell, no sour sweat. A little bit of smoke, a little bit of ymir. Christa smelled like cheap flowery soap.  

Ymir was nothing but “fuck off”’s and daring looks while Christa was full of polite “Yes sir” and “sorry”s.  It was funny. They must have looked funny if the situation had been different.  Because no one watched them. Everyone was busy. Everyone was fighting their own war.  Christa’s war now was trying not to get caught up in the small touches of the tanned and freckled hand.  The accidental touches. The way Ymir sat closer, and christa did too. Rebelion. The rush. No one noticed. 

* * *

 

 

“Kid died today, 8 years old”

Christa nodded and kicked out her shoes.  “Maria’s are scary”

“Christa, don’t judge a cover by it’s book, nothing is what it seems, they think we are scary”

“Yes hanji” and she knew, she knew very well. Yet before she moved in with hanji, she was told otherwise. Her friends told her otherwise.

“I know you are afraid christa, but you should keep your head up high”

“It’s the kids with small bodies, blond hair and warm clothes that die first” Christa mumbled while taking her coat off and throwing it on the chair.

“Wrong!” Hanji grinned like the crazy women she was  “It’s the closeminded kids who die first, you’re father might have given you those eyes and some money, but Im giving you and open mind, you, christa, will survive”

And truer words had never been spoken. EVen if both highly doubted christa would be safe. Openmindedness needed trust and trust was told to be the downfall of Rose.  

“I’ll take your words to heart, hanji.. May I be excused?”

Yes, you may, hanji said. Christa walked to the small yet full library. It smelled like old and dust. Or maybe that was one smell.  Christa searched for all the history books, which would feel even more right in the old room with an old smell.  Turned out hanji kept history books that would almost be considered illegal before the reuïnion. How was it before the wall came? How is it in Maria?  There was a book about the smaller wall inside of Maria, keeping the middle class away from the hood. You could easily pass it, yet no one did.  Then she learned about Rose, what rose had done wrong, what Rose had done right. And she couldn’t believe everything in the book. She brushed off their mistakes. Ignored them.

If anyone knew the truth it would be hanji, she realized. Hanji knew, she knew more than anyone. They were searching for weapons everywhere. They were searching for knives and guns. Never even realizing.. the most powerful weapons were laying in their basement. In hanji’s brain.

When evening fell Christa had sneaked her first book up to her small room. A brown book called ‘the choices made’. It smelled a little like old wet dog. Yet when she opened it it was as if magic hit her. The only thing she felt was a war between the words in the book and the word ‘traitor’.


	3. When fire burns into you.

 

Some people believe that you are born into this world because you were loved. Some believe that the statement ‘no one loves me’ is always wrong because you were born; because your parents love you.

Even though christa would never say such a thing, She was the prove that earlier statement is a lie.  It is something that people tell kids who are going into pubescence because they are just way to emotional and they have parents that actually are worried about them.

After being told that they would be better off not being born, after being ignored from the moment you were born..  you just don’t believe it anymore. You don’t get it.

Maybe Christa’s father somehow cared, because he send her to a foster family that seemed to do so. Then when they were done with her, when they couldn’t take the silent perfect girl anymore (or maybe the dangers that came with it) she was send off to hanji. Hanji was afraid of nothing. Hanji seemed like the average scientist but she would go to any length for knowledge. For all christa knew she could be going into side Maria just to write a book about it. No one knew what she was up to, but hanji knew, oh hanji knew everything first and she rarely told anyone.

It was 7 o clock. School started at 9. This was later than it had done before but now people came from far; from maria, they could have said just as well.

She went down on her bare feet. Her face a little bit thicker than it usually was, she probably slept on it. Tired and ugly, she didn’t care. She enjoyed the darkness of the morning and the cold chills under her pastel purple pajama.  Bare feet, small, soft and nails a little bit too long. It all looked so perfect yet it confused christa because it was so much different from what she had once had. Her feet had once been red and purple, open and full of ilt. She once worked way too hard. Then when she got into her first foster family she was scrubbed and cleaned because she needed to be 'worthy of her father' like hell!  Sure she learned to love the nationalistic family. Even if they spoke so highly of her father and so lightly of Maria. She believed Maria's were horrible because of them. Only now she thought about changing her opinion.

When arrived in the kitchen she saw an unexpected guest; mr ackerman.  A rather dark look on his face,  talking hushed until christa came into their sight "Christa you're awake already?"  Her foster mother mumbled.

"Couldn't sleep so I wanted to get a cup of tea"

They both stared at her for a while, the questions running through her mind luckily making her a little less aware of the fact she was still ugly and tired. What was mr ackerman doing here?  Was the most important question.

Just when she wanted to open her mouth to ask them Levi stood up “I’m leaving”  

“See ya” Hanji mumbled with her face still stuck in a book. Both absolutely not caring about each other or her.  

Christa didn’t speak. She didn’t look up from her cup of tea. As if she knew better. As if that she knew that the answers and that what they were doing was too much for her. After all, she was rather weak, she was rather selfish too.

“You should start getting dressed christa” a lie to make the moment a little less awkward; begging her to play with it.

“Yes, I apologize for interrupting”

“And christa?”  The blonde nodded “Are you still wearing your necklace?”  The one that once was Hanji’s.

“ Of course”

Hanji smiled “Good.. Remember we’ll do anything to keep you safe. Don’t ever worry”

We. We. We. The words rang in Christa’s mind. Who was ‘we’?  Was it Levi too? Her real family? That women that had given her company when she was little? Who was we?  

She decided it was better not to ask.

She decided she didn’t want to ruin the moment that showed affection towards her.

“thank you hanji”  

That  day she went to sit with her ‘friends’.Thinking of some nice things to say. Thinking of ways to not let the fact she started to dislike Maria less and less show.  

“I’m getting one”   Christa sat down next to Armin while an apparently exciting converstation was going on. Or maybe it was just Eren’s everlasting excited voice. She felt even calmer and politer next to them. A thick white sweater on and light pink lips smiling a fake smile.  It seemed as if the eyes of Maria’s were burning into her sensitive skin  “All three of us are”  like always Eren decided what the other two did.

“Sorry what?”  Christa wondered out loud.

Eren grinned passionately and creepily   “A tattoo! We’re going to tattoo a rose.  Most get one on their back, where it doesn’t show, but I want one on my arm so everyone can see.”

“Ah.. I see”  It was stupid really. Why would they bother? To get killed?  To be robbed?  Weren’t they Maria kids to start with? What were they trying to prove their loyalty to Rose even if they were born in Maria? Foolishness. Ignorance. Lack of autodidact.  

“I’m getting one to man!”   Award for lying about obvious things still goes to Jean kirstein.

They looked at christa, as if they were expecting her to say something, Sasha chewing way too loud, connie hanging on her… eyes on her back; eyes from Maria’s.  She looked over her shoulder before answering. Two dark eyes burning into her and the group. Quickly she turned  “tattoo’s aren’t really my thing really”

“Maybe a small one on your wrist? I mean, you are the cute representation of a Rose, you should”  Sasha mumbled with her mouth full.  

“I think you can see I’m rose without a tattoo.”   and a discussion broke out. Christa didn’t listen. She was caught up in her own words and silently wondered why they hurt so much.

She wished she could go back to being alone while smiling. Christa was the perfect example of someone who smiled while wishing for different things, while wishing for being so much more.  

The bell ringing, quickly standing up and getting away from her table mate. Ymir.  Oh Ymir. Sitting way too wide, legs always open. Ymir who ‘accidentally’ bumped against her and ignored it like Maria’s and Rose always ‘accidentally’ touched. Like there was no war going on what so ever!

Then there was another person that had her out of her mind. Marco. Sweet marco blushing like a strawberry every single time Jean even looked at him. Jean being thickheaded enough to think marco had some kind of plot to rip some money off him. The whole group was the perfect way of explaining racism. Racism on it’s finest.   Did Mina or Thomas look like Maria?  No. Not at all. Did they hate them for being them?  No doubt. They hated them for living at a certain place. Not even for having a certain color, because honestly if we’re talking about opposites in looks Annie and Ymir are the perfect example. Ymir definitely had some black blood in her. Same goes for marco. And then there was Reiner, blond like christa..

Class ended.

Christa walked out,  her broken white coat on. A thick scarf. All things her father had bought her with money earned for his own family. Still all the clothes and jewelry felt cold knowing that she was unwanted there. She frowned knowing that. She wanted to punch him, to kill him.. she wanted a real family. A sister and a mother..  not switching after a while. Not being afraid she’d have to switch and leave hanji.

The snow was thick. Her boots half white now.  Red cheeks because of the sharp wind.  

“Ey bitch”  Pointed at her.  She was that ‘bitch’ they were talking about. For what?

She looked up “excuse me?”  Not a smart answer. Then again, the whole route she took to get her mind of things had been foolish too.

Before she could think about it even more her legs were pushed away from under her and her face went into the snow. Now she knew that not only the wind bit sharply; the snow was twice as bad.

As Christa tried to recover from her dumb fall she felt someone trying to pull out her shoes. As she realized that her face got pushed back in the snow and they ripped her scarf off.  “Stop!”  Of course they didn’t listen.  They just hit her again.  “Listen! This is no use, just let me take off my-” she got pulled up. By her hair true indeed,  then again, she hadn’t expected a robbery to go nicely.  “My scarf is worth nothing..” She stood up, bare foot in the snow, a knife pointed her way.  A warning, a threat.  A heart beating heavily. It was hers.  The others seemed confused but comfortable.  “My earrings.. they are expensive”   She took them off and laid them down calmly, not making an unexpected move. Afraid she’d get killed; she was a Rose, it was a wonder she hadn’t been killed yet. Killing her would be so much easier than robbing her.

Maybe those Maria kids weren’t all the others told her.  “And your necklace!”  Or maybe they were.  

“Yeah, right”   _do you still have that necklace I gave you?  Good, remember that we’ll do anything to keep you safe.  
_ Yeah right. And will that stop when she’d be in danger because of that necklace? When she gives it away.   

She threw hanji’s necklace on the ground in front of her.  “Coat”   She nodded and took it off.  Then her sweater. Standing in just a tank top now. Shivering. Her perfect small feet getting blue and purple. Her hands- now gloveless- and red and purple.   

Would they ask for any more?

If they’d ask for a simple coat.. maybe they wanted more. Maybe it was for their brother or sister..   

Just when Christa thought they were satisfied one of the two- a boy-  snorted disrespectfully.  “I kind of like seeing a richkid like this”  Cold, afraid and alone?  How could they?  “Skirt!”

“What?”Christa’s eyes widened. Her legs probably gave up on her.  “bu- but it’s worth nothing, it’s useless, it’s-”  But they weren’t just after money. They wanted her to be in pain. They didn’t even need to punch her for it. They could just command and she would follow. They were loving it.

They loved the fact they were in charge without having to work for it, like Rose had always been in charge.

And so Christa realized how serious they were. She zipped her skirt down and let it fall onto the snow. Stepped away. That one step on her frozen feet hurt so much she forgot she was naked. She wasn’t just embarrassed, she was in pain.

What now? Would he rape her? Would he steal her underwear to? Her tank top? Would he rip off her hair sell it to all the sick people in Maria? Would the girl watch? Laugh.

“Look at what’s going on here! Seems like somebody forgot who he is”  A sarcastic and loud voice filled her ears. A familiar voice. A voice that made her rip her eyes off her frozen feet and into dark brown eyes. Those eyes caught hers. It was like they kept them from falling, from lowering her head.     
“Ymir!”  It wasn’t her voice. It was the one of the girl that had silently ripped her scarf off. The girl with dark curls and empty eyes. A thin vest.. shivering insanely. It almost made Christa want to give her sweater away. The fear in the girls voice when saying ymir’s name almost made Christa want to send ymir away.

But she kept quiet, her eyes on the tall women, her heart bumping too loud for her frozen body.  “Getting money is fine, but right now you are stealing what is mine”

“I didn’t know” The boy said, backing off.

Even though Christa had no idea what was going on, she was happy it was. She was, for once, happy to see ymir.  She feared ymir, sure, but she feared the others more. She feared the snow, the one thing she was most alike. She feared herself and her life too, getting her face pushed into the snow was like getting her face pushed into her passed. Into the ignorance of all humans.

“Just leave, you weak bitches” Ymir grunted and to Christa’s surprise they both did. They left all her stuff and mumbled weak curse words.

For a while Christa didn’t dare to move. Even when the two were long gone she just stared at the other women. Who was picking up her clothes. Whether it was to take them with her or just to give it back was a mystery to Christa.  All the times Ymir had complimented her clothes… now was the moment to find out whether she just liked Christa wearing them or if she wanted them for herself, like an envious women.

“Put this on, you’ll die”  Ymir handed christa her sweater back and let her eyes slide over christa’s small white panty “and you’re skirt.. thin skinned girls should-”  ymir shut up, as if she only now realized she was being nice. She didn’t flinch while Christa obeyed and put her clothes on with a cold stare burning into her. Ymir had no shame, but she knew that already.   “Shoes?”  

Christa pointed to her shoes, laying meters away “I’ll get them if you-”  Ymir didn’t listen and moved to pick up her shoes. Christa was glad; her feet were burning, every step would be like walking on fire or hot stones. Sadly she was no monk, nor was she good at material arts or hard like Marias. She couldn’t walk on fire. She was thought not to play with fire.

Well actually Christa was thought not to play with anything. “I’m keeping these”  She held up Hanji’s necklace and two earrings.  “That all you got?”   

“I’ve got a book”

“Nobody’s gonna pay for a book when they need food and status”  Ymir smirked and looked at christa’s earring with one eye closed.  “Real gold?”

“What is the safest answer to that?”  

“The truth, if I sell it under the wrong name I’m dead” Ymir laughed “Though that’s probably what you want”

Christa wiggled her toes in her now tight shoes “Not as much as you might think I do.. Anyway it's real gold, I don't know how much carat”

“Good enough”   Ymir searched through Christa’s bag, pushed christa’s bread in her mouth and stood up. Only taking what she needed, christa was even warmer than before she got ripped off. Hot and nervous, you could say.   “See ya, Flower girl”  

How was Christa a flower?

Did she appear bright from the outside?

Did it look like she could make anyone happy?

Was she one with the warmth and love?

She was no flower.

Nothing like a flower.

The only thing she had in common with a flower was the fact that if anyone asked what she was the answer would me “A Rose”   

* * *

“Christa?”

She threw her bag on a chair and pulled out the white coat. Her heart had still not calmed down  “Yes, hanji”  

Hanji kicked open the door of her lap and walked out in a white blouse.  “I noticed you were reading some of my books”  Christa felt a stab in her chest. She didn’t know what was scarier; getting robbed or disappointing hanji. Which reminded her of the fact that she had lost hanji’s necklace. The thought alone made her feel bad enough to just crawl in a hole and die.

Dying didn’t seem bad at all, actually.   “You like History?”  oh how ironic that question would have sounded if it had been a little bit different.

“Well.. I just like to understand the situation I’m in.. history helps”  She just hoped that that would sell it. It wasn’t far from the truth. She wanted to be different. She wanted to know why..  why people acted this way. Why she couldn’t see her father. Why Ymir.. was so much different from her.

Since when was that the main question? Had it happened on the way home or before that?

“I guess that’s true, the stories written in those books.. People try to sell they’re history but it isn’t. You are the ‘people’ they are talking about in those books”   Christa felt excitement going through her. Without a real reason  “Let me tell you something christa.  I have a book that goes into the deepest of Maria, the darkest.” She smiled creepily  “The person who wrote it was killed right after!  But I-”  oh no “ have that book, here in my basement”    

“Isn’t that-?!”

“-Dangerous? Most likely to get me killed if they find out? Amazing? The truth?! All of it is true.”  Hanji smirked.   “You want to read it?”

Could christa even answer that the right way?  Her father was a high man of Rose. Her friends wanted Maria dead. Her last foster parents would rather die than real a word about their neighbors.

Still christa was already in deep enough to bring shame on them. On herself.  “yes. Yes I want to read it.”  

“Good” Hanji stood up and left without saying another word. And then seconds later she threw a book in Christa’s hands. Left again. Left her alone with such a dangerous thing. With such a dangerous weapon. Understanding fully and well that she had given a child a knife. She trusted christa enough. She knew that this could only turn out badly, still she trusted her with the truth.

Christa red the red letters on the cover of the book.

**_The truth about the Titans._ **

“Thanks, hanji”  Christa whispered to no one. She was alone with this sharp knife, pointed at her, a rush going through her.

 

 


	4. The Paper Titan.

If you’re still with us, and I hope you are, you know that christa had gotten a book pushed into her hands. A dangerous book with the truth in it.

The whole thing turned out more dangerous. Closer to her. Way to close to her, both physical and mental.  Sometimes the danger of that book accidently touched her kindly. Sometimes the danger of that book filled her mind and took her dignity.

Christa found out how close it was in steps. Like the chapters of the book.  The words hung heavy. They galmed through her mind.

 

 

> Part one:   **How a knife raised me.**

__

 

Christa was careful to only take out the book when no one was watching. To read every word slowly and at least two or three times.  She made sure to repeat every word in her mind, it kept her sane when seeing once familiar houses burned to the ground. Ashes blowing in the wind. It looked beautiful.

The women in her book wouldn’t have thought so, she explained that when she was young she hated fighting and wars. Later she needed it to survive.  Mothers got raped and Fathers became addicted to drugs in the periphery  of Maria. It was nothing new and nor was it a surprise when her parents ended up the same.  Used and drugged. Eventually they were dead when she was 11.  It seemed to be the worst thing that could happen. Yet she, like all the others, started fighting, started getting into drugs dealing and started stealing. The first thing she stole was food. The second was a book. She needed one of those to stay alive too. To forget her parents and forget her pain. To stay alive.  She stayed alive, and stole more papers to tell people about how she did. How they could.  She became hard and people started looking up to the young girl as she was taken in. Taken in by the titans. The titans were harsh and had no mercy. They were smarter than other fighters and all had their own way of expressing themselves. They all had a nickname and something they loved. The only thing they had in common was that they were all sinners on the highest level.  Main character and writer of the book was called The Paper Titan .  This was because of how thin she looked compared to all the books she stole. Because of how white and weak she looked, even though she cut most painful.  It was because of her words, so complicated no one understood.  She was a good women. She had proved it by writing this book, risking her own life.  Just about a gang in Maria. It was no big step. Still she earned a knife in her throat because of it (or a gun through her head? who knows.)

 

When Christa finished repeating and understanding parts of the chapter she was almost at school. ‘ teachers’ standing everywhere. Their eyes burning into each child. Daring them to try and kill the other students. Daring them to speak up. Most likely a gun in one of their pockets. Most likely battlescars on their entire body.  

All were cold like Mr Ackerlman who’d never reply after Christa’s soft  “good morning”  but instead spend his time glaring around the room. His eyes most of the time falling on her neighbor, who had her eyes either closed in the most bored way or locked on christa.  It was kind of like stalking really, specially since ymir had stopped talking to her ever since that incident.

 

In the break Ymir would put her head on their table and sleep. Most of the time sitting alone. one time when Christa walked by she could hear the freckled humming a song. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of song it was; where she had learned it.

“Hey Dancing can you shut the fuck up?”  She had once heard Reiner yell.  

Ymir had replied with a harsh  “The fuck you using that name for around here?”  

“So high and mighty you forgot what you used to be and still are?”  

To that ymir just gave him a middle finger and slammed her face back on the table.

Back then it hadn’t really seemed like something was off. It was later.. it was in the next part and in the next chapter that she realized what had really happened. It took her quite a while to get all the puzzle pieces to fit.  Even if you probably know, she had no clue.

 

 

 

> Part two:   **Becoming a titan.**

 

They say these homeless kids became titans wasn’t all too different from how we become humans. They had to fight. They had to fight to become what they were to become.  Like christa had to fight not having a family. Like christa had to fight her father without even being able to look in his eyes. Everyone had something they needed to fight. Someone they would kill if it were to stay alive.

To become a Titan you needed to fight your superior. The Paper Titan had seen not much of a problem with this. She riled when looking into the others eyes and felt like crying. She looked black and blue at the ending, but her appointment wasn’t undamaged either. There was rage inside of her. At that moment she thought of herself as a book, small, not powerful if you never look in it, but once they had opened her she was the strongest. And so she didn’t feel like she had lost when she was lying on the floor; bleeding.  She smiled kindly as they pulled her up straight again and congratulated her.   The Paper Titan didn’t realize she had been lucky until a week after that, when she watched a young boy fight another one of her surperiors, beaten to the ground, not able to get up. He kept getting punched by the older girl. He kept being punched until his eyes turned away.   “He’s knocked out!” the boy beside her yelled. Followed by someone saying “He’s not breathing anymore”  way too calmly for her liking.

The next day it was time for The Paper Titan to get her scar. The mark that would change her life forever. The same one all the others had. A scar looking like she had been bitten. On her arm. They would cut it in, ignoring her screams. That was what they did with all the Titans. That’s how Titans treated each other and how they were once treated just to be strong.

 

“Christa”  A whisper behind her. The dark voice made Christa’s heart skip a beat. Fear.  “you.. you brought me in some serious trouble”   She was pretty sure she was going to get killed right there. The last thing she would see would be freckles dancing above her.  “The necklace, it was no gold.”

“I meant the earrings only”

Ymir groaned “You sure as hell could have mentioned something”

“I’m sorry”   

“You’re going to get yourself fucking killed if you don’t stop being such a fucking careless-” she stopped herself mid sentence.  “Ah, whatever”

“You’re not going to hurt me?”

Ymir smirked “Wasn’t planning on it, I might still change my mind though.”   Still somehow christa trusted on the fact ymir wouldn’t. The way she was looking around, afraid anyone would see them, she wasn’t doing it for herself. She couldn’t care less about who might possibly see them. She did it because she was afraid Christa would be called a traitor. Not that she would be called a murdered; she was probably getting called something like that already.    “A- Anyway, I brought you your necklace back.. Can’t sell it for much anyway”  

Christa’s heart stopped. The necklace. What happened to the earring she got for her fathers birthday was of no importance.  “Thank you”  

“By the way, I didn’t know you were from the high house”  

Christa swallowed “I’m not”

“But the earrings had the sign of.. at least that’s what the dealer said so I thought-”   It was the truth. Ymir probably knew the truth “Did you steal them?”  

“I didn’t.. I got them, from a man that is not in my life anymore”

“Engaged to a deadman?”

Christa looked away. Wishing she could just get the necklace and leave “No, I have a father who I’ve brought shame to” And simple like that ymir became the first outsider to ever know who she was.  It was easy. Nice. It was a weight of Christa’s shoulder. As dangerous as it was.

“Not smart to admit, I could get some real hard cash if I kidnapped you”   Ymir put her hands in her pocket, to either take a knife or christa’s necklace.   Turned out it was the necklace. She reached out to christa with the necklace in her right hand.

Her tanned handed.

Except from the white scar.

A scar reaching from her thumb to her wrist, formed like she had been bitten.

Like she was a Titan.

“What happened to your hand?”   christa asked while taking the necklace from ymir’s hand.  Hoping the question hadn’t been too obvious. Hoping ymir wouldn’t realize Christa knew about the titans.   Secretly hoping Ymir was one of them, and that she would tell the truth too.

“I was bitten by a police dog”  she smiled cockily “Pulled back but he still got this bit of my arm”   Christa couldn’t really judge whether or not ymir was telling the truth. She suspected she wasn’t but as she had never seen anyone who got bit by a police dog she couldn’t prove anything. So she shut up. Saved her words for when Ymir would start spilling about who she really was. The daughter of ‘that man’.  

If she’s ever mention it. I would just reply with a cold ‘what about you, titan?’ in a way as cold only the daughter of ‘that man’ could.  

 

 

 

> Part three:   **Calculate all the sins and the answer will be Death.**

The deeper Christa got into the book the less she started caring about the people dying in the present time. The news fell on her doormat every day, she quickly scanned all the people who had died. They were from both Maria and Rose, still something caught her eye; no people had died in the Maria periphery. At least, no news said anything about the people that had. After finding out the place exists it was impossible to believe no one had died there.

She studdied Ymir in the way Ymir had studied her before. Alright, maybe a little bit more subtile. She looked away when ymir caught her. She didn’t get scolded for it. Her eyes most likely didn’t burn into ymir. Maybe they did burn into ymir’s scar though. Christa just couldn’t stop staring at it.

Do you know the feeling you have when you’ve just finished a long book and wish you could just stay in it forever? You feel like you’ve just lost your good friends right?  

Now imagine meeting someone out of that book right at that moment.

That’s how christa felt. She was painfully curious. A little bit envious maybe even?  She wanted to feel what it was to be a titan, even if she knew it was the most painful existence there was. She wanted ymir to tell her story, to tell the truth, even if she knew that it was dangerous.

All the dead bodies around her disappeared while she silently studied Ymir.  For all she knew ymir had killed them. She wouldn’t even care.

 

“hey princess?”  Ymir whispered when the bell had rang.

Christa looked up “Don’t call me that in class”

“Can I do so when not in class?”

“Preferably never actually”

Ymir smirked “I bet you and your daddy issue filled cute ass have been waiting for that pet name for forever”

“Please stop talking to me in public ymir”  

Ymir chuckled and looked in front of her. Pretending not to speak to christa anymore. Christa relaxed and took a book out of her book (a average roman) and sighed at how boring it was “So do you think you can bring some extra of that bread with you next time? It was better than anything in Maria.”

Christa looked around the room. Most people had left. Only levi was sitting there, looking at his work. Probably listening to them. Probably going to tell hanji everything that had happened. Then again, who was hanji to judge her?  Hanji supported anything weird.  “You’ll answer my question and I’ll give you food, deal?”

Ymir smirked cockily. Not knowing what was awaiting her, probably.  “deal”

That said Christa walked out and into the cafeteria to sit with her ignorant friends. Eren was still whining about killing all Maria’s. Jean had luckily piped down a bit, whatever the reason for that was. Christa though.. Christa made sure she didn’t let any change show. She made sure she looked like that polite, nice and quiet Rose. The perfect Rose girl everyone would be envious of. Looking like the flower itself. Smelling like the flower itself. Thorns even sharper than those of the flower.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intense questioning

This had caught her attention before but Ymirs eyes seemed to burn her. The tension between them made her feel like vomiting. Like airpressure suddenly changed.  As if ymirs eyes were the button to all airpressure, like she could made her choke and die any moment. Her eyes held the confidence of someone who had that kind of power.

Like her words. Her words were useless and said nothing at all, yet her tone spoke for an army. Whenever she really spoke everyone listened, intimidated and well.

Nothing had ever beaten as hard as christa’s heart the moment she was going to ask U\Ymir her first question. The bombs, the fists of ignorant fools fighting this damn wall, the stomaches that fell in wall Maria because food was lacking in the same amoungt knowledge was, they were all quiet and subtle compared to Chista’s heartbeat.

She handed the bread, a big piece because she hoped for a big answer. Ymir smirked cockily. “So, your question?”

Christa had no intention in beating around the bush, acting like christa would, ymir knew who she was “Are you a part of a gang? Like.. I don’t know.. the titans?”  

Ymir’s smirk didn’t fade, yet the frown on her face wasn’t completely hidden anymore. The darkness in her eyes seemed to appear for a slight second. For a second she gave something away; she knew the titans, she was one of them or she had gotten beat up by them. Whatever it was, it made her eyes turn even darker.  “Skip that one, me answering anything about that would mean nothing good for you”

“Bu-”

“Blondy I swear,  I don’t give a fuck about why you care what happens in maria but it’s gonna get you killed and I don’t want a ghost hunting me just because they stuck their nose into-”  

“Ymir, okay, calm down” Christa looked around them. God they had to hide in this small place just so they wouldn’t be seen. It was obvious ymir had a point. If they talked about it.. In a place like this.. Okay it was obvious.

So how would it be comfortable? How would Ymir feel like telling. Part 1; raisen by a knife.

Christa smiled kindly  “Do you have family?”  And  ymir wouldn’t notice. She’d be too comfortable to do so.

And so ymir smirked and told Christa all about it. It was no big deal to her. The answer was no. Not even a dramatic ‘No’ it was the most simple and casual no. The ‘parents suck, fuck yeah I’m an orphan’ kind of no. It seemed to fit ymir. Christa didn’t find it weird; when she looked at how many trouble her parents had brought her she kind of wished she had been an orphan from the start too.  “Me to.. I haven’t been my whole life but I am”

Ymir smirked “Guess we’re orphan buddies then”  Yeah like that was something special in a war. They could be Orphan buddies with the entire population.

“Anyway, go on”  

“Okay.. So, I lived in the woods for a while, didn’t freeze to death, surprise” she mumbled sarcastic “Then I started living in abandoned buildings and I started stealing food.. kind of got stuck there.”

“You live in an abandoned building?”

“Well depends on what I feel like.. sometimes I live in a place for homeless kids, or something like that”   Christa couldn’t help but think it, catch the hint ones again.  Or maybe, just maybe she was getting too obsessed with titans.

* * *

 

Day after day christa brought ymir bread and asked a useless question. Dared to have a useless conversation. Some days ymir was moody and didn’t answer any question at all. Yet in their disgussions and fights something always came up. Something that helped. Something christa liked. Somewhere she stopped caring about the Titans and Maria and started caring about ymir as a person. Confident and cocky. Not afraid to tell how much she had fought. Where she had gotten all her skars. Why she looked completely dead all the time. Even though ymir obviously wasn’t telling the whole truth she wasn’t exactly lying either. She was always beating around the bush a little. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that their moments together were presious to christa. Nothing let her heart beat as fast. No book told a story as beautiful as ymir did. Her voice fitted stories about Maria. Dangerously low and sassy. Sarcastic and heavy.  Every story seemed to live. Every story could have been what happened but it could also have been all lies

One of the  days christa took the bread out of her bag and started walking toward the nearest small forest. Luckily there was a dark figure following her. Her heart beating in her chest; she was basically commiting suicide and she didn’t even care. no.. it wasn’t that she didn’t care, she enjoyed it. She loved it. Her heart beating in all the places it shouldn’t beat.  Like bumgeejumping or skydiving without checking if everything works.  She loved it.  That simple walk where people looked at her with envious eyes, ripping her clothes of her. That simple walk where people looked at ymir, fearing and angry that she dared to walk here.

Until they got to the place no one dared to come. Their eyes crossing. Christa feeling like herself again, a little bit moody and pessimistic. No one that cared. Not even her. If she would die she wouldn’t care. That was who she was when not around others, yet with ymir she fell back to who she really was.   

“I’ve got more bread than usual, didn’t eat today”  

Ymir held the bread assistantly “You need to eat”

“Why would that matter to you?”

Ymir smirked “I know that Rose people are into ripping others off but we do try to keep others alive.. if possible”

“Oh,I just thought.. they did that everywhere” True. Christa knew that Roses liked to look as if they cared but they didn’t. The rich became thicker and the poor thinner. People living on the streets died instead of getting a place to live.. Roses were heartless, no matter how good their smile, no matter how bright their clothes; they were dark.

“You don’t appear to have a lot of trust in humans” She ripped one fifth of the bread and handed it to christa, half for herself and then put the rest in her bag.

“I don’t”

A silence between them. Eyes tearing each other apart. Until christa felt naked, as if the other knew everything about her.  While eating the bread she had gotten her eyes sometimes closed and she almost moaned. Christa wondered what ymir ate when home. Did she steal food? Did she buy food from money she had illegally earned? If so, why did she enjoy this little bit of food so much?

“do you steal a lot?”

“Not anymore.. at the beginning I did, now I have enough respect to get me food. I will survive without doing so”

“But it took police that long to find you, isn’t it easy for you?”

Ymir smiled. At her ignorance perhaps?  Yeah.. christa’s ignorance must have been hilarious to a maria.   “Like I said.. I’m a normal human, nothing special”  a dark chuckle “I highly doubt you can say the same thing”

“I’m human alright”

“A normal human? Do you live with a normal family?”

Christa looked away as ymir came closer. Her breath tighter and shorter as the distance between ymir and her did the same.  “Do _you_ live with a normal family?”

“One person families are normal, I live with myself”

“Liar” Christa hissed.

Ymir laughed and hung against the nearest tree, backing off. “You’re funny” A snort “You risk your family- or whatever-  and pride so I can answer some questions”   Christa closed her eyes, aware of how foolish she was. Afraid of the truth “You fight back to a woman that stole your jewels, you know I have a gun and that I could break your neck like the smallest branch-”

“I didn’t think things through”

“Or you have nothing left to lose”

Christa perked up. Offended. Afraid that someone knew. That someone saw through her light hair and blue eyes. That someone pushed her expensive clothes away and looked into her soul. It was what she feared most. “I do”  a lie. She didn’t like people anymore, after years of loneliness. She pretended she did so no one would bother to try and heal her loneliness. Yet this women. When staring at her vulnerable ignorant body, did she see the loneliness in her past?

“Are you afraid?”

“No”  Burning eyes traveled over her body. She was sure that when she’d take out her clothes there would be red stripes and burn wounds all over her body. Ymir held no shame, eyes traveling over her breast, back to her face and to her hips. Ymir’s eyes could have felt like sexual harassment even if she was fully clothed. Maria’s didn’t look at her like that. Maria’s always had wrong motives. They were gross. Even crossing eyes with them in a sexual way could get you killed.

“Take me somewhere we can be alone and I’ll tell you all you want to know”  

“I want you to give me all of it, so I hope you’re hungry” Referring to their deal. Referring to it so it seemed as if they didn’t just want to know all about each other. So that it seemed as if a Maria and a Rose had a good reason to see each other.

“I’m always hungry” And god how they both would have gotten killed if someone had heard them. How ymir would get hung and her hair would get ripped off, the words traitor cut into her head and ymir’s name burned into her soul.  Why? Why did they risk that?

“Come”

They started walking again. Christa first and Ymir following behind her. Dirty glared send to the Maria behind her. What was she doing on their side? Why was her back so straight and her head held so high? Why was she still alive? Was she going to rob the girl she was following? Everyone was wondering, no one dared to ask. They all thought the same;  she’ll get killed anyway.  

But she didn’t. They came to christa’s house and ymir was still in tact. No one dared to walk up to the scarred and dark skinned girl with a cocky smirk and eyes that held thousands of deaths.

“Blondy, is this-”

“shh”

Ymir managed to keep quiet for about a second “Princess-”

“I said shut up”  Her eyes traveled around the house while searching for any sign or hanji being at home. Usually she was. In the basement reading books or something like that. Not this time. Maybe she was at levi’s. Or maybe she was selling weapons and inventions to the government, or illegal organizations. It wouldn’t surprise christa if she had done both.   “You know, you have the worst personality switch I have seen”

“You must be dissapointed I’m not all smiles like I am at school” Safe. She walked in casually now.

Ymir smirked “Quite the opposite, can I close the fucking door now?”

Christa nodded, took some food and put on some water. Waiting for the boiling to finish.  “Do you have like.. coffee?” Ymir stretched like a black cat while asking it.

“You know you can’t get that anymore, it’s too expensive and useless”

Ymir frowned “Yeah but do you have it, rich girl?”  

“I do” Her voice broke, yet she made weak coffee for ymir. She gave something that could be considered a hundred years old bottle of wine away to some maria girl. She took the girl down to the basement, where the cold hit harder but the books smelled better. All hanji’s work standing there. She was doing everything she shouldn’t.

“Tell me about it”

Ymir sat down on a table, pushing stuff away, ruining hanji’s work and a book or two. “I was born from a vagina, which you know. My dad was never there, mum killed herself when I was seven, which you also know”  She swallowed some bread as if her throat was closed “I started stealing, bla bla bla, but then there were the Titans. The Titans are well known, if you’re a Titan you are feared, if you’re a Titan you are hated yet.. yet everyone wants to be by your side. You can trust no one if you’re a titan”

“Is Reiner a Titan? I saw his bite mark and he called you Dancing, is that your Titan name? Who did you fight when getting into the titans? Was it one of them? Does berthold know Reiner’s a titan?”

Ymir put her hand on her forehead, her eyes wide “Christa how do you know these things? You are in too deep, you’ll get fucking killed, you crazy bi-”

“I have a Maria and a Titan in my basement ymir! Think”

A silence fell. Ymir reached out to christa and held her face in her palm. Without a reason. Yet the touch was so heavy. She was forced to look into the dark eyed even though she wanted to look away “You’re scary, princess”

“You’re not”  

Ymir laughed loudly “Because I’m myself? You’re used to it aren’t ya?”

Christa didn’t reply, she just watched ymir sip her coffee in amusement. Swallow way too loud again.  “I fought an elder when getting with the titans.. a boy with a burned face” the elder started again “We became friends after I won the fight. I was respected.. They were not mean to me yet I felt I was out of place. We killed, we were heartless and stole from the rich. We stole from people like marco who work on a farm.. just food though.” the delight on her face fell slowly “I killed a lot of people, but sometimes people living in Maria have no choice, specially titans”  Christa felt like hugging ymir. Taking her hand and kissing it softly. Ymir was everything but heartless, she claimed to only care for herself multiple times but ymir was a good person.  “I promised myself to start anew.. Piping down on the drugs, on the sex, not playing innocent girls I’ve promised a warm place and food. Not dumping girls I’ve promised safety after the sex”

“Girls?”

“Yes girls christa?”

“ah.. so.. the same sex?”

Ymir smirked, like the shock that must have been on christa’s face was funny. “Yeah, I’m gay, a faggot” There was that word again. The word christa had never heard of before. There was that thing again; loving the same sex. Was that only normal for Maria’s? Were they demons itself even though christa had doubted it?   “Is it really that hard to imagine?”

Ymir stepped closer to Christa- who was frozen to the ground- and put her head next to christa’s breathing in her ear. When she smirked christa could feel it clearly, on her ear. Imagining the smirk with knots in her stomach, the heavy breath warm.  “Have you never seen it before” low and cocky. Christa rilled. Ymir’s lips were on her ear. Wet. Her ear was a little bit wet. Ymir was licking her ear a little, nibbling it as if she was the thing she was here for and not the bread. Suddenly she shivered and gasped, her lower body warm. Wide eyed while ymir pulled back and chuckled; as if it had been a joke. As if it had been nothing.

Somehow the rest of the story didn’t really matter anymore. There were more important things; deaths, fights, Titans and rebellion.  Yet they didn’t matter. The only thing she was thinking about was the fact that some Maria’s were capable of loving the same sex. Maybe Reiner and Berthold did. Maybe together. Ymir certainly did.. Ymir.. Ymir had sex with girls. How does one do that? Was ymir’s body even the same as hers?  She had expected it to be, humans are humans right? Maria’s and Rose’s were all human? Same body, blood flesh and a soul?

It was called being a faggot, or gay.  She had never heard about any of it but ymir had said that people in Rose could get hung for being one.  It also pained her to say that this only made the thing more interesting.  

“I refused to go back to the Titans.. And so I got into street fights and lived on the streets too.  The police found me to go to school when I had just won a fight. Fighting spirit still fit and finally able to get some money I just.. I didn’t want to go knowing I’d be hated for who I am again. Having to hide it and shit”

“You hide who you really are?”  

Ymir laughed “Do you?”

“I don’t even use my real name” Christa admitted with a heavy heart. Something she had never said since leaving her mother. Not to any of her new ‘parents’ not to anyone. Hanji didn’t know, school didn’t know. She was christa now.

Ymir smiled down at christa “I know”

“how?”

“Wild guess and puzzle pieces fitting, I’m good at gambling too actually, that’s why I’m so darm rich and shit”

Christa chuckled, genuinely, for the first time in forever  “Do you hide the fact you are a faggot too?”

“No.. No, because that’s something I wouldn’t mind getting hung for”  

Christa couldn’t imagine being so proud about something that you’d die for it. Christa had nothing she was proud about. Maybe Ymir really was richer than she was. Ymir had pride and confidence. Ymir had jokes and passion.  She had thousands of freckles that seemed to keep her company. She had dirty hair and bad smell,  big muscles compared to her thinness and dark hair.  Nothing more than that. No stuff and no home.

She was richer than christa because everything she had was wonderful and strong.   “How do you do it?”

Ymir smiled “Kill your own heart and you’ll be able”

“No I meant-” She meant loving girls. She meant having sex with girls. She meant loving the own sex and kissing them.  “No.. No I guess I understand what you mean”  She had done the same, and maybe that was the way to love girls too. To just kill your needs.

 

Ymir left a while after that. Just in time. Just before hanji came home. Christa cooked while hanji went into the basement. Christa wondered if hanji could smell ymir as strongly as she always did. Would she be disgusted? Christa wasn’t, she liked ymir’s smell. It made her anxious but she liked it.  

When making dinner she cut in her own finger; ymir would have laughed at me if she saw how much it hurt me, she thought. Not that ymir had any right to do so, it was her fault christa cut herself. It was her fault that christa couldn’t think straight. Her stupid freckles and tanned skin. That rebellious look in her eyes.

Christa wanted to see ymir again. Ask if she wanted to come around. She wanted ymir to touch her like she had done before. Thin lips on her ear, a heavy breath that made her warm and anxious inside. She wanted to feel ymir’s rough hand, on her chin to push up her head or on her shoulders to push her into a wall and whisper comforting threats.  

Was ymir living on the streets now, with the snow? The snow was still deep. Everyone was starting to hate it even more. All ice. If the war didn’t kill people, the ice would. Undercooled. Slipped on ice and broke their skull. Ended up in water and froze to death. All of these things were happening outside and that was the exact place ymir lived.  It worried her untill she drove herself insane. The soup was over boiled. It tasted horrible.  

Then when in bed she washed away the horrible taste with words.  ‘Ymir is a Titan’ The words tasted bitter sweet in her mouth, way better than the soup she had made.  ‘Ymir is a faggot’ New words could be so interesting, Christa felt so attracted instead of disgusted. She stayed up all night and thought about the words.

* * *

 

“Prinsess” Ymir whispered to her in class. Christa ignored her and focussed on the boring school book full of peaceful lies.

Ymir got the message and looked in front of her again; they gained enough attention as weirdest class neighbors as it was.  Well maybe after Reiner or Berthold, who had no isseus with touching each other when it was far from necessary. Obviously and obnoxiously cocky.

Christa rarely noticed any of this, she was focussed on the air beside her. The smell and the mood coming from the girl. The warmth and the sounds.  Ymir had become so calm. She had tried to change herself and this was the outcome.  “Prin-sess~”  She whispered so softly no one could hear. Even Christa wouldn’t have if it wasn’t from the dark hand that softly touched her underarm. Ymir wasn’t even pretending it was on accident anymore. She just softly stroked it, full of love and small enough for no one to notice.

Christa should have been so disgusted. Horrified and mad at the same time. She should have screamed and Mr Ackerlman would have kicked Ymir out.

She didn’t. She was so relieved. Ymir still wanted her. She wanted contact with her. To talk and to share their secret like they did. They knew too much about each other. Ymir softly stoked the thought back in Christa. It said an intense ‘you can never get rid of me’ and it made Christa choke somewhere deep inside. From the outside she pretended not to notice. While the hand under the table traveled from her arm to her legs. Easily falling off, the fingers traveled in a somehow non sexual way over her femur.  Both of them looking in front of them like nothing was happening. Both of them considering every single thing that might be obvious by now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you think <3


	6. Historia.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter I've written (:

Christa walked into the woods. Something she had been doing more and more lately. It wasn’t safe; she was well aware of that.  It was so lovely though. At first people looked at her, stared and glared at the one that seemed to be the object of innocence but as she kept walking the people started getting less and eventually they disappeared. Then she was finally surrounded by trees and felt the only human she wanted to see getting closer. Well as much as that one ‘human’ still was human.

“Took your sweet time didn’t ya?”  She was laying next to a tree, her eyes never opening as she spoke. Christa wondered if she had laid like that when there still was snow, since the ground was now dirty but the snow had disappeared, the little bit of wetness was the only sign it had ever even been there.   

“I went home, took some things”

Ymir sat up and took off her sweater, laid it on the floor beside her for christa to sit on. At first christa had tried to fight ymir showing such compassion but after explanations, discussion and fights she had accepted it. And so she sat down on the other's black vest without whining or arguing.  Warmth spreading through her because someone so dark and honest was taking care of her. It wasn’t because she was rich or cute, and even if it was ymir wouldn’t hide that fact. Yeah.. compassion seemed to mean so much more when it came from such a insensitive person.

“Now that’s what I like to hear princess, I’m starving”  She still didn’t want to call christa by her name. She knew it wasn’t her real name and so she refused to say it, as if she had sworn that she’d figure out what christa’s old name was some day. Which wouldn't happen.

“We only had old bread, because my father.. he..”    Silence. Christa wanted to vomit at the thought of how much power her father still had in her life. He could turn everything around. She felt so weak.  “he didn’t-”

“No need to say it”

Christa nodded “ But I did take something.. a present for you”  

It was as if ymir had just seen pigs fly. Her face held an indescribable emotion.  Surprise, confusion, disconnection from the whole universe, maybe. Christa found it hilarious really.

Christa rustled in her bag and soon found what she was looking for;  tobacco. Pure ones you can roll yourself.  The ones hanji smoked whenever she had the time and money. A lighter in the package.  Honestly, christa felt pretty damn proud about getting it for ymir, without forgetting anything, without getting beaten up for stealing such a valuable thing.    “Holy shit princess, this is fucking amazing! How the fuck did you get these? it’s a fucking millionaires product! They only make shitty beer in Maria, keep throwing that shit in my throat but this.. this is amazing”

“Stole it from hanji,.. nothing special”

Ymir grinned and took a few seconds to smell the tobacco with her eyes closed “Nothing special my ass, I fucking love you for this”

They both leaned against the tree and ymir started rolling a tobacco, which she -thank god-  could, since christa had no idea how you were supposed to do such a thing.  Calmth hit them and Christa took a book out of her bag, Leaning against Ymir slightly.  They sat in silence as ymir smoked, she didn’t want to be bothered, it seemed. Her eyes were closed and her breaths deep. Intense. Ymir was intense, her entire being made it hard to breath. It was an air hanging around her that made you look up to her, bow down for her, fear her. 

She moaned softly when she first breathed in the gross smelling smoke. The moan sounded so deeply pleasured that it was more than wonderful. Christa loved the idea that she could ymir sound like that. It was her doing.. if she only knew more things ymir loved at much she’d try to get money for all of it. Make ymir look that enchanted again.

After a long silence Christa spoke up first  “Someone in my street was hung.”  She was afraid it had sounded too casual. Then again if anyone knew, and let loose the inner demon, under the name she promised to never speak,  it was ymir.  

“I know”  She smiled devilishly, still her voice was kind and careful  “Do you know _why_?”  

“He was a traitor.. they say”    Then again, wasn’t she too?

“Wrong”

Ymir’s lips moving in a harsh way- like when she was demanding things or threatening pour beings- was starting to become one of christa’s favorite things in the entire world. Her lips were thin and dry. People used to tell her that women with thin lips couldn’t be trusted. She was starting to become more and more sure that it was true.  
Yeah, surprise; she did actually realize that Ymir should probably not be trusted.  It’s just that.. when a rabbit falls in love with a wolf you can’t keep him away from the wolf either. Even when the wolf’s teeth are hidden in the soft white fur, the rabbit will keep telling himself :  ‘he’ll only lick me, he’s never bitten me before, he’ll lick me,’ which is foolish. Now She was in this situation.  Ymir would touch her, she’d touch her in ways that felt slightly unnatural, but in ways she couldn’t place either. It didn’t feel bad, it just felt intense. One time ymir had bend down a little to let her nose slide over christa’s ear, and she’d smile so christa could feel her damn cockiness against her cheek.  Another time she had taken christa’s hand and she’d let it caress her own freckled cheek. Her cheek felt irregular.. scars all over it,  and when christa looked at it, from way too close, she realized that the way it felt was nothing compared to the way it looked.. full of freckles, or wrinkles when she smiled or frowned.

“Then why did he die?” Christa replied. Out of place and too late.

Ymir looked at her hands, a vulnerability she’d rarely show.  “No, actually I don’t feel like telling you”

“You don’t feel like telling me why the man died?”  christa asked, offended.  

“Yeah you heard me right. It’s something between your people, I have nothing to do with it.”

“My people?!  You mean Roses right?  Are you seriously-”   Christa shot up from ymir’s sweater, backing off. Ymir was seriously discriminating her. Even if she thought Ymir was the only one who could look past all the war and racism going on. _She_ could, so why couldn't ymir do the freaking same?! 

Christa, fucking.. Figure your own shit out, you can’t even be who you are around your friends ”

“You don’t know me”

Ymir glared up, but didn’t follow christa’s motions.  “Can you really say that?”

“There’s a lot more”  

Ymir chuckled “Yeah, a lot that you haven’t figured out yourself either”

“Then explain it to me!?"

Ymir closed her eyes and massaged her forehead. It made christa’s heart skip a beat. It made her think about why she had been working so hard for information up until now. Because what she had with ymir was not just that anymore. It was becoming a doomed friendship. They were way too close. Why were they even that close? It made no sense at all. Why was it so important to stick with ymir and feel her warmth all the damn time? It felt so out of place when she was reading the same book she had read when smelling ymir, feeling ymir. 

“Okay, you know, don’t tell me. Not like I can’t get my information elsewhere”   Christa took her bag and turned around.  Just enough to see ymir hold her pack of tobacco tightly, afraid she would take it from her.  Of course, that was the only reason ymir was there.  

Good.

Very good

She was afraid of this relationship, she was afraid of ymir. It would give her nothing to stay. Friendship with a Maria? Friendship with a Titan? Why would she bother?!

“Fucking hell Christa calm down”   She said ‘christa’. She said ‘christa’, though right now the person she was being wasn’t Christa. It was the person she was deep inside and it was terrible. How could she let that person slip out like that?

She ran off.  It was rather scary, being with ymir like that.  Being herself like that. 

  


Funny thing was, she wasn’t mad at Ymir. She might have been a little bit afraid. Afraid ymir would rob hanji and her. Then again she silently hoped ymir would do the robbery while she was at home. A knife against her throat didn’t seem so bad if she could talk with Ymir. Having ymir ignore her was even more scary. She didn’t know if feeling that way was worse though.

“Christa, have you seen my tobacco?”

She played with her potatoes “I haven’t”

“And the bread?”

“threw it away, was getting old”

Hanji stared at her, a scolding look  “Christa we don’t have it that big, you might get expensive stuff but work isn’t going well and-”

“I know, I’m sorry”

Finally hanji sat down to eat. A weird look on her face, interested, she was full of stories and couldn’t wait to tell or hear them. Christa knew that hanji couldn’t hold back when it came to the truth.  “Hanji.. do you know why Mr Becker died?”

Hanji played with her food  “It’s hard to explain Christa..  Let’s start..”  A heavy silence  “Do you know what gay is?”  

“Loving the same sex.. a girl explained it to me”

That earned her a surprised look “Oh.. that helps, well, being gay isn’t accepted here in Rose and so-”

“He was hung for loving another Man?”  

Hanji casually smiled “Yeah.. Such a shame, he was a nice man”

Christa felt sick. She felt like puking. She felt like throwing her plate on the ground and screaming until Ymir came to stop her. Not only did she feel bad for pushing Ymir on the issue. She also felt personally attacked. Maybe because she was fine with people loving the same sex? Maybe because she knew there were more important things to do in a situation of war than hanging people for the one they loved. There were a lot of reasons to be mad.   

Her main reason was Ymir. Ymir who was wonderful and beautiful. Ymir who would be hung if anyone knew she loved the same sex.

“Is that girl gay?”

Christa shot up. “No.. no I wouldn’t want to hang out with such a person”

She hated herself deeply. Like she had done before she met Ymir with some more anger and a little bit of guilt to top it.  
Shame on her. 

* * *

 

Ymir wasn't at school that day, or the days after.  Armin said he was getting worried about christa one time, said she was smiling less; wondered why she had such a serious look on her face. Christa was actually very ashamed that she let it get that far. So far that people started noticing her stupid, imperfect personality. She cursed the person she’d never speak of; herself.  She cursed ymir for ruining her little by little. She just wanted to see ymir, she just wanted to apologize for what she had said.

The next few days christa didn’t sleep. She stared at the ceiling an awful lot. She wondered what ymir was doing. Did she have christa’s present pressed to her lips? Was she thinking about her?  If she had to choose, to which would she rather press her lips? Christa wished she could scream and ymir would immediately react.  She wished it wasn’t as dangerous as it was to go see ymir.  She wished ymir would press her lips against her neck and lick it softly making her heart painful and brushing it off as if it was nothing.The air intense, painful and depressing.  Christa loved the depressing air ymir had.

Four days. It took christa four days before she had decided what to do. And so, when she had, she walked up to her resolution. Reiner.

She waited for him near the border to Maria. The place he and berthold always passed.  “Reiner” she called out, actually frightened, surprised that reiner appeared surprised.

“hey Angel, what’s up?”   Berthold was sweating at Reiner’s reaction. Christa tried to make out if they maybe were gay too. Maybe it was normal in Maria. Maybe people didn’t get hung for it there. Was that even legal? Were these people supposed to get hung or was it social justice decided by your neighbors and family?  

“Well..” She tried to act like christa, blush, stutter, whatever it took “You live in the periphery of Maria don’t you?”

Reiner chuckled almost devilishly  “If that’s what you want to call it”

“Uhm, I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be, so what about it?”  

Saying it would be dangerous. It really would be, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She had to see ymir. Her mind was making her absolutely lose it.   “I was wondering if you could take me to see ymir?”

“Ymir?”   Christa nodded “No can do, I don’t know where she lives either”

“Then..” hastiness, stupid  “can you take me to the Titan base?”   

She had never seen so much ‘oh fuck’ in one’s eyes. Their eyes literally went bigger. Berhold seemed to choke in his own sweat; would have probably drowned in it if it hadn’t been for Reiner standing close. Reiner’s stern look fell for a second, his eyes traveling around, stuck in the upper left. Thinking of all the lies he could come up with. They seemed to fall apart at the words.  “the what?”

Act polite, lie, christa told herself “that’s the place for orphan kids you grew up in isn’t it?”

“How much did ymir tell you?”

Her face must have given it away. Because before she could even speak up, or lie about it, reiner let out an hissed: “fuck." ;  It had probably been the smirk christa had let escape in the fraction of a second.

She put on an extra innocent face, an extra high class sounding voice  “Don’t go blaming it on her though, I figured it out on my own, the fact that she was one, the fact you guys exist among us..”

“how?”

“Being an highly educated women helps, anyway, ‘Armored Titan’ , will you help me?”

Reiner snorted “I hate ymir, that fucking bitch”

“I’ll give you-”  I thought for a second “Anything”

A silence. Christa was bluffing. She had eaten pretty badly herself recently. Yet she would give up a lot to see all that the titans were. She’d give up a lot to feel ymir’s hand on her body again.. she didn’t even know why. It was terrible. People used to say that lust was a dangerous thing but never had she realized why. Until now. Until it was a robe around her neck. Now a robe is nothing dangerous.. until you’re not standing on steady grounds anymore.

Reiner walked up to her, fear shot through Berholds eyes. A deep story inside of them.

The slightly tanned, big hand moved up to her jaw. Took it roughly and pushed it up to make her look into blue eyes. Like hers.  His face was too close. Dangerously close. She felt like running, crying, screaming ymir’s name. She felt disgusting. At that moment she realized how stupid she was being. These were two high criminal boys. She couldn’t take them, there was nothing she was better at than these two, nothing that made her stronger. They could do anything they wanted to her.

“You are a stupid girl, I could rape you right here, I could kill you right here.. you are-”  

Christa closed her eyes.   
In her mind the big manly hand turned into a thinner one. A darker and freckled one. With her eyes closed she looked into two dark eyes. Two eyes that held a story no one knew.. except from her.   Except from her and ymir, it was their secret, their story, their book.

Blue eyes shot open again, stronger. She needed to see ymir “Take me to see ymir, please”

“Do you even understand what I just said?!”

Christa smirked “I don’t care, I want to see ymir, I want to see that dumb women, I want to punch her for leaving these days, I-”

“you’re crazy”  

I’m not crazy. I’m just not christa; she thought.  

Who the fuck was christa anyway. Christa was just fictional. Someone to make her life easy  “Will you-”

And then, as she thought she had Reiner in her palm, somehow, the other boy spoke up. Stepped front  “I will¨  

And Reiner had nothing to say anymore. Reiner stepped back and let go of her jaw. He listened to Berthold. They shared confused glances but there was no fight. They were a team. They didn’t fight like ymir and she did.

 

The walk was longer than she had expected it to be. For all she knew the walls inner maria weren’t that far. Maybe she just wasn’t used to much. To her they walked in a fast pace for at least an hour or two. Her feet were hurting. It was terrible yet she didn't really mind. If that even makes sense. 

The normal part of Maria was nothing like she had imagined. It was calm and beautiful. There were a lot of fields and families were working on them. Everyone. Even the mothers and daughters were helping.    
This made her realise people weren't rich, it seemed as if there were no rich people whatsoever.  There were; reiner said. There were people that absolutely pissed on them and wiped their own ass with their money. You didn’t see them though. You never did. Some even moved to Rose.  Racism is not an issue when you have enough money, he said.

 

 

When christa saw ymir she didn’t recognize her.

Reiner had known where ymir was, the exact spot and the exact time he needed to be there. He had lied through his teeth about not doing so.

Ymir’s face was bruised and her clothes slightly ripped. Her tobacco almost fell out of her pocket, to her surprise ymir pushed it back; it earned her a punch against the nose.

She was fighting once again. Like she said she had been doing before school started. Fighting for money. She was screaming and there were huge bags under her eyes. She was smiling too though. Enjoying the pain, probably. Christa enjoyed pain too. She had started enjoying pain since she met ymir, because she enjoyed everything about ymir. And everything about ymir was pain. Ymir was pain, ymir brought pain and ymir felt pain.

It was amazing.  

“Oy Dancing!” Reiner yelled, rough and confident. No one seemed to mind him, they were staring at christa. Their eyes trying to rip her light coloured and warm clothes off.  Their hands would have most likely done so if it wasn’t for the two incredibly built guys standing next to her. She was glad she had asked them. She would have been raped otherwise, and since Reiner didn’t - which she thought was because he was..you know.. gaying with berthold- she was safe.

Ymir didn’t take her eyes off the man she was fighting with, which christa was grateful for really “Shut up Armored, Can’t you see I’m trying to make some money!”

Reiner sighed beside her, while the tension between the two titans seemed to increase  “I brought your girl!”  

That earned him some attention.

That earned ymir a punch in the face..  

That earned christa a small heart attack; she wanted ymir to win.

And so she decided to scream:  “Ymir don't look at me, go get him!”

Everyone stared at them. Reiner embarrassed yer amused.  Ymir laughed wholeheartedly and kicked against the others face as if it was nothing. Even though Christa was new to all of this, new to Maria, she couldn’t be surprised. Almost getting raped, the one she cared about fighting for her life. Who was she kidding? It was the exact way she had expected it to be. It was just that she didn’t like to think of it.

“Ymir!” No one had any idea what was going on. She didn’t blame them. No one knew their story. Only they.. Only they knew each others story.  “Ymir I’m sorry!” 

There was no way to still recognize the boy after. It should have scared Christa. It should have disgusted her and made her run away. It didn’t. It was eat, be eaten, or hang out with those who get you something to eat.   

 

When Ymir was finished christa noticed that the sky was a little bit bluer in Maria. Maybe because these people were afraid of nothing. If there was a bomb above their heads they’d laugh, if they’d see a magical bird above their heads they wouldn’t care. And so the clear sky enjoyed it here, because people were used to him and everything else.  Or maybe it wasn’t that.. maybe it was that the people were darker, and so the sky wanted to comprehend that, maybe it only seemed as if he was bluer. Who knows..

“Reiner, Berthold”  Ymir whispered, when she protectively stood in front for christa, not spending a word on her yet. Trying to keep the glances she took limited.  “I know you fucking hate me but-  ugh nevermind, just fucking leave already”  

Berthold smiled “You’re welcome ymir”

“Don’t make me sound disgusting”  

Reiner stretched and threw an arm around the other boy “You are disgusting ymir, one day we’ll kill you.”

“I’ll keep you on that one fuckboys”

And they left. That was a goodbye, probably?

 

“Mister becker died because he’s gay”  Christa said after she had been following ymir into a calmer part of the city. She whiped every hint of a smile off her face like that.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed it. You said once.. that you would die for your rights but-”

“I would”

Christa looked at ymir and tried to smile “You’re so strong”

“So are you”

She swallowed. Closed her eyes and took a deep breath, a long pause, heavy and beautiful. Ymir's being surrounded her and gave her so much more  “Historia”   

“What?” Ymir stood still, wide eyed, no idea what was going on.

“My name is historia”

Ymir grinned brightly, a face she had never seen before, a face she had wished to see again.  A face of intense pleasure. The pleasure of getting what you want, what you need. Then she let her face fall into a face of comfort and satisfaction.

Ymir reached out, her hand was rilling. It seemed as if neither knew why, nor did it really matter. Ymir let her hand fall on the white cheek, quickly it became the lightest tint of pink.  “It really fits well”  
The touch was way too intense, their hearts..  shit.. and the world, the world was gone.  She had done it. She had really done it now. She had said the thing she’d never speak of. Her name. She had said her name  “Because you’re into history and such, with the walls and the war and titans.

“It’s not history, ymir”

Ymir let her hand travel into the blond hair, slightly pushed it away "alright, let's make it history then" 

All she could do was nod. They wouldn't be able to, but it the fact that was what she wanted had started it all. And it had only started. There was a long road in front of them and she a knew at that moment that if was going to walk that road without ymir by her side she would die again. Historia.. Historia would die again. 

  



	7. Things about war.

I know that I started this story with some facts about war.  

The way Christa felt about that war; the way the object of perfection felt about war; the way a no one felt about the war.

Yet what I’ve shown you wasn’t a war. It was a hard life. It was inner pain and absolute devastation. It wasn’t war for all. It was an inner war playing out in the mind of a traitor. Maybe it was the innocence trying to break down the traitor that hurt so much. It was the fact she was all of these opposites. It was her Rose, trying to break down her Maria. It was the crystal perfection trying to break down her history and maybe it was Christa trying break down Historia.  

It was inner war, but the real war; I have never shown.

 

What I have shown is how coincidental one acts when darkness lights them up.  So have I shown you the darkness and I have tried to shown you the light, even if this girl hadn’t found it herself. Others would fail to see this light because as Christa lost the war and Historia seemed to darken. But to people closest to her, darkness would make would only make it seem brighter.  Darkness didn’t seem like a bad thing to historia, and that’s why she was willing to be Historia. Darkness.. Darkness had a name now. Darkness was tanned, and freckled, she was rough and thin, darkness was straightforward and held electricity in the tops of her fingers.

Christa was chased out by darkness.

 

“His hair was the colour of the sun and his eyes were slightly green. Never had I seen someone looking that rich and neat in those streets. He was staring at me. His eyes never left, his lips slightly smirking. And so I stared back at him and opened my mouth  ‘Is gawking at a women like that something habitual or are you like an animal and is this how you show you want to mate? You damn bellend’ “   Ymir laughed into Historia’s shoulder, the warm breath making her shirt a bit damp.

“What does bellend mean, my women of words?” 

“Dick.” She mumbled;  Ymir laughed again. Maybe because historia knew what the word meant. But this wasn’t because she was one to use such a word. It was just that the last time she had read the book about the paper Titan she had searched it up. Now that she was reading the book all over again- only now out loud for Ymir to hear it too- she knew all that would happen and what it meant.  
Ymir loved hearing stories, something she hadn’t expected at all. Sometimes the tanned one would lose her concentration and laugh or make a whiny sound while pushing her head into Historia’s shoulder. Most of the time it worked and they’d forget the book for a second, only looking at each other. It reminded her of how much of an animal Ymir really was. Not really bad, just instinctive, whiny, strong and fast, always wanting more food and such.    “I should start calling you that”

“Is it just me or do you appear meaner with the day?”

“I’ve always been mean to you if you compare it to my attitude towards other people. Your own fault though, you wanted to know my name”

“Oeh, sounds kinky”  Ymir knew not to pressure the name issue. Historia trusted her with it to such a height she even dared to joke about it.  

“You want me to read on or what?”  

“yess, Historiaa…” Ymir whined.  

The first few times Ymir had done that her heart had stopped, skipped a beat, or whatever it had done it was something abnormal and it felt quite terrifying. The idea of someone else mentioning her name made her nervous. Before she would always nervously shoot up when someone said ‘history’ only to realize they weren’t talking about her seconds later. She was way too sceptical and well aware of it.

Something was changing though.. finally..  “The man with the sun colored locks smiled at me. His teeth were the color of the whitest clouds,  that made me feel as if my teeth would look like the color of his hair to him, and my hair like the color of his eyes. I wasn’t all clean or beautiful like this man.‘You look like a criminal yet you sound like a queen.’ He said cockily  ‘you look- and sound terrible.’ I had replied.  Yes our first encounter wasn’t anything romantic really."   Historia read on as she felt Ymir calm down beside her. She had expected ymir to like the fighting parts but whine about the part where she’d meet her lover,  Yet ymir seemed to have no problem with the whole romantic stuff whatsoever.  Neither did she have a problem with sitting in a basement or going home in the dark because Historia didn’t fancy being alone.

Darkness can be quite soft, it slowly let’s you drift away, like sleep.

“His name was Matthias Steiner. He lived together with a woman called Anita Steiner. Anita wasn’t his mother or sister, contarary to what I wanted to believe at first. Oh no.. Anita was his wife.  This was the first time I hated someone for taking something from me. Of course I had hated death, but I was not his equal.  I hated this woman, and she did not even-”   

She was interrupted in the middle of her sentence by sirens. They galmed through the whole city. Neither one of them knew why they were warning them and neither one of them moved to find out. They sat in the basement, shocked and confused.   
She panicked. Even if she wasn’t soft like before, she was rilling.  “Historia, that’s the bomb sign”   As if she didn’t know that! Why did Ymir think she was panicking? What gave Ymir the right to.. to be so damn calm, while she..

She just nodded “Hanji will probably come home then, historia..” Ymir stood up, making her heart jump a little. What gave her the damn right to walk away?   “I should leave, hanji wil-”

She took the tanned hand as fast- and as tight as she could. Subconsciously, once again.   “Of- of course she won’t come home; she is permitted to stay inside and where she is!”  She looked at their locked hands and felt her throat ache.  “And so are you. Are you going to let me stay by myself? Even if she does come home.. I won’t feel any safer and-”  She stopped when she realized she had said too much when rambling. Yet her hand stayed in ymir’s. This was not her doing. Ymir held onto it tightly.

Softly and slowly ymir moved. Her movements somehow seemed to comprehend the awful sirens. The noise came into her head but didn’t seem to come out. Only that sound made it a thousand times worse, because truly, what was she afraid of?

That her friends would die? Her father? Hanji?   She had not much of a reason to be afraid yet the sirens made her lose it.. yet the thought of Ymir leaving now..   

Ymir sat down on in front of her, and the darker hand was soon on her cheek and brown eyes were tightly holding her gaze in place. “I won’t leave you”

“That's what they all said”  It was an egoistic thing to say and still she couldn't stop herself. 

Ymir pushed her fingers against christa’s mouth, let them slide over her lips “Historia I..-  fuck these fucking sirens are they gonna keep going? God damnit I’ll kick the ass of whoever placed these damn bombs”  

Maybe Ymir knew it was herself she was afraid of, but that’s why she’d like to blame everything and everyone else.

“Let me tell you a story now.. Historia”  Ymir whispered suddenly. Her voice was barely hearable over the sirens. Over the panic.

Historia could do nothing but nod. She sat down as close to Ymir as she could. Ymir smelled like Hanji on a saturday- like beer-  combined with sweat and something a little bit muddy. Then there was this sharp cinnamon smell. It wasn’t bad smell.. though it probably sounds like one.  “One time..  There was this girl and she.. she had been tormented for being darker skinned, gay and homeless. She wondered why everyone had these stereotypes in their mind. Why did these words exist? Why did these boxes exist?”  The sirens disappeared when Ymir talked, she laid her head on ymir’s chest and closed her eyes. She was safe.   “She started hating everyone that was the opposite of her. The white people, the straight people, the rich.. but she didn’t realize that slowly she was becoming more and more like these people. By thinking the same, by putting people in these boxes.”   the war disappeared. The bombs disappeared.  “And this girl.. she wondered if there were still people that didn’t think in boxes. It didn’t matter if they hated everyone, loved everyone or something in between. She just wondered if there was anyone who didn’t know what gay was.. who didn’t mind what gay was. Someone so damn ignorant, yet so innocent that they didn’t know skin color matters, someone who would try to fight the rich and the poor, to put it on one line.. There seemed to be no one like that”     Historia slid her own hand into Ymir’s and breathed the muff air in “She found someone like that.. Historia.. there still was someone willing to think all the boxes over and you know what happened to the girl? She thought everything over too. She couldn’t hate her opposites. She realized. Because her opposite was someone who didn’t judge, it only appeared she did, in a mask she would loose as the girl got the know her better.”  

“You don’t know the boxes I have put myself in Ymir”  She whispered, with her eyes still closed. Ymir placed her arms around her, a movement to put up a defense. To keep the sirens away from her. The war too. Ymir wanted to keep her safe “I don’t know, but I want to get rid of them”   It was so unlike Ymir to talk to openly about her feelings. Maybe the first danger notice had her shook too. Maybe she just really cared about her that much.  Maybe she had fallen in love with her. She didn’t know. She didn’t dare to ask. Yet the idea became louder, and more disturbing than any siren.

“Alright..”  She climbed into Ymir’s lap and wrapped her arms around her neck.  “You have started doing that anyway”  they were two weaklings. Fuck they had each other so weak, so moist, so honest.  

They sat like that for quite a while. hugging. In complete silence. Well.. they were silent, the world around them had never been louder. Even when the ‘clear’ sign had been given there was noise outside.  Happy screams, relieved cries and screams about people that had died. Ymir and she ignored it, they couldn’t care less about the people that had died or the people that had survived. They both knew this, because the first box ymir had broken was the one that pretended to care about everything and everyone. Christa might have loved, and Ymir had thought she had too but she knew just as well that Historia didn’t love everyone.

It was unnaturally and terribly hard to rip their body’s apart, but eventually the stronger one of the two did.  The freckled one did, this was the first time she noticed that the light inside of her left as the freckled did.  “Hanji will be heading home as fast as possible; to see if you’re okay”

This time she stood up and picked up her things “It’s not safe outside”  

“Oh please, historia”  

She sighed and closed her eyes “She won’t mind you know. Hanji. She will love you, she loves these books too”  Ymir’s sweater was tightly placed between her thin fingers, with no way to escape it.

“I’m not risking it”

“You wouldn’t be risking anything but  _my_  life”  

Ymir put her bag on her shoulder “ _Exactly_ , now give me my sweater”

“I could live with you, in the woods”

“You would die”

She rolled her eyes “I can handle the cold,  Ymir, maybe it would be hard at first but at least I will be happy”

“Stop, Historia, stop. Why must you fail to understand what I will do to you? Why can’t you see what they would do to you if they found out?  What happened to that freaking neighbour of yours was shit, ain’t nothing like that will happen to you, it’ll be far fucking worse”

She looked down.  Ymir was right. She was completely right still she couldn’t help but want it, so, so bad.  She whispered “I’m sorry”  before she could make the same mistake she had made last time.  

Ymir moved upstairs without saying a single word more, Historia didn’t follow her,  they always did that. Every time hanji wasn’t at home. Never did christa say goodbye.

When Ymir opened the front door she could hear the yells and cheers all the way in the basement. Everyone was so happy but to her it was just another headache.

The third headache came when the door opened again. This time it wasn’t because of the noise;  It was because of the fact the door opened seconds after the door had closed. It was because of the fact Ymir and Hanji’s eyes had crossed. She didn’t even doubt -not even for a second- that Hanji knew. That deep inside she knew that Ymir had been inside, eating her food and touching her daughter.  Still Hanji mentioned nothing. All she said was “are you completely safe, christa?”  

 

* * *

  
  
  


Morning. Not that she was a bad morning person but this morning was just terrible. After dreaming about the only girl you care about touching you in ways you can hardly imagineime guilt just kind of stacks up inside of you, you know? Of course you wouldn’t know. Who the hell dreams about someone of the same sex like that? Okay Ymir would but just not about her.  

This was terrible.

She promised herself she wouldn’t think about Ymir the rest of the morning.

She failed a minute later, when she was making her first cup of tea. This time it was a lot more innocent though. She wondered how Ymir looked in the morning. How much she would whine. How she would drink her coffee in the morning. Or maybe she’d tea better?  No. No way, Ymir would probably drink strong black coffee.

Ymir would probably have messy hair and smell way too much like herself.  “Christa?”   Historia but yes.

“Yes hanji”  

Hanji sat down and pointed to the seat next to her.  “I was wondering”   Historia sat down  “That girl that’s been coming over..”  a heart stopped right there “when can I meet her?”

Never had she stared in front of herself that lost  “Who?”

“The one that eats my food, smokes my tabacco and drinks all my coffee”  

“There is no one like that, I told you I don’t know-”

Hanji sighed and let herself fall into her chair deeply “I’m a genius Christa, it doesn’t take much for me to freaking figure this out, and c’mon a girl being that close to our door yet avoiding to look at me?”  

Historia looked at her hands in shame “I- well- she”

“What’s her name? She’s a Maria isn’t she?” and so Hanji got way too excited. And so she wasn’t as afraid anymore.

“Ymir. Her name is Ymir and she lives in the woods somewhere in Maria”  She couldn’t help but smile “She’s in my class”  

Hanji shot up and hit the table as hard as she could “Then It’s settled! I want her here with dinner”

“But Hanji- “

“No but’s, be careful no one sees you, I’m going to put on clothes”  Hanji had to be the weirdest person to walk on earth.  Historia was actually genuinly shocked things had turned out this way. She didn’t even know if she liked it or hated it. Actually she wanted to keep Ymir for herself. Having one dirty little secret felt better than it should. Then again meeting up with Ymir whenever she wanted- on hanji’s free days too- would be pretty damn handy.

 

Every time historia closed her eyes she felt the sirens galm through her head. Her hands started rilling and she luster after Ymir’s touch. The sound sirens and the thought of Ymir were a weird yet terrible combination and she couldn’t say that the whole thing made her recently rising headaches any better. Yet ymir compromised it. The thought of ymir hurt but she needed it to stay sane. The lust was hard but being aware of ymir was.. addictive.

She hadn’t been kidding when she had said she wanted to live with Ymir. She had become addicted to the damned women. She wanted Hanji to know who Ymir was so they could be together more. So their dirty little secret was a little bit less dirty and a little bit less secretive.

“Guys, if I can do anything to help you should-”  Oh how she heard an oh so familiar voice laugh behind her. It were the words. It was the damned niceness. Ymir was the only one who knew they were out of place so much. Ymir was obvious and rebelious, she wouldn’t hasistated to make her feel as if she was lying to everyone. She could have known when she showed herself to Ymir. She should have realized that after a while ‘the object of perfection’ historia managed to be became funny. Christa became a laughing object.

Or maybe.. just maybe,  ymir wanted to let her know how close she was. She just wanted to make sure they both knew how close they were to each other. How well she could hear the dark and soft laugh when no one else could. Ymir just wanted to show that she could get closer than any Maria should be able to get.

Oh was it delicious.

Shit can you even imagine being a drug addict and not getting drugs for weeks and then suddenly meth comes to find you? It searches is way through everyone and everything into you.. you understand how amazing it feels don’t you?

Can you imagine not breathing for way too long and then sometimes a small feild of air gatheres around you and allows you to breath.  

You would feel amazing. You would take it, no matter how dangerous it was. You would breath in. You would let the meth warm your body. It was a rush worth so much more.

“Everyone.. I’m going to the toilet”  Whether or not she was interrupting one of her friends was unknown to her;  she had stopped listening some time ago. Who the hell can listen with two dark eyes burning in your back?

 

“Hanji wants to meet you”   Toilets. School. Dangerous place for a Maria and a Rose.

“You appear to have lust for social harassment and a horrid dead more everyday”  Ymir sat on the crappy sink, devilish smirk playing on her lips and dangerous eyes burning into her.

“You dare to look at me like that;  walk to a distinctive toilet right after; thinking I won’t follow and dare to say I have a death wish?”

“They can’t kill me”

“You know you will get killed if they try to kill me”   Ymir would risk her life to save hers. She dared to bet her life on that one. It wasn’t the most steady input when it came to gambling her life away but still she was confident and thought it was quite the good idea herself.

“Bite me, Historia”  Confirmed even. Ymir realized that too and closed her eyes to sigh cooly. It seemed like a pleasured sigh actually, quite a loving one. Though this was just her best shot at understanding Ymir  “So what about hanji? and be quick the toilet isn’t exactly the best place to start judging each others fucking feelings”

“She figured it out, she wants to meet you”

“You dumb-”

“Ymir please, we were both careless, the math wasn’t all too hard to do for a genius like her. Now will you please just bare this with me?!”

Ymir looked at the door yet she didn’t scold her on how loud she had been. Maybe Ymir just felt attacked for a moment, yet she didn’t dare to speak up. Ymir reminded her of a dog at that moment. A wild dog that would bite everyone and growl so hard no one dared to get close. No one would ever think such a dog would get a proper owner.. someone he’d listen to. Yet when they find this one person that looks at them the right way they surprise everyone by being the best, kindest and strongest.

Ymir was like that. And in this moment Ymir only listened to her.

That thought and feeling made her light up. It was absolutely crazy, totally mad.. she felt so insanely happy.

“We are never going to able to blame another for this, Ymir, also we must trust Hanji to get through this”  and maybe Ymir didn’t want to get through this together, but she sure as hell did.

Ymir covered ger face with her hands and then pulled them away so fast anyone that didn’t know her would have feared for their life. The movement made her shiver in fear too, in the fear of Ymir really not wanting to do this thing together anymore.

“Fine? Anything else princess, you want a cup of tea, do I need to wear a suit when meeting your parenting figure?”  Jokingly Ymir stood up.  Historia laughed too, it had been a while since she had been called princess by Ymir.  

“You are terrible,  a cup of tea would be nice though”

Ymir smirked and started walking away “I am your cup of tea, surprise, now bye”   

She smiled while Ymir walked out. Then when the other women was out of sight she let herself fall against the ugly grey wall, her eyes closed.  The air was thick and there was still a small genuine smile playing on her lips. The thickness of the air somehow made it easy to feel her own heartbeat slow down, it filled the room and calmed more the furter Ymir went away. It was pleasant, yet it was only pleasant because she was still left if the scent of Ymir.  If for once they didn’t have to be so tense, if they could just lay against each other like they could in her basement for once..  Always the damn panic when Ymir left her in public. When Ymir was near she’d be fine but as soon as the freckled women left all of the consequences would race through her head and bump into every damned nerve.

After what seemed like seconds of standing like that the door slammed open and Sasha and Mikasa came barging in. “Are you alright?”

“Totally, yeah”

Sasha spoke up loudly  “Because we saw some damned Maria walk out and you were taking so long! We were scared for your life”

Traitor.

Liar. You filthy liar.

TRAITOR.

TRAITOR.

LIAR.

LIAR.

LIAR.

LIAR.

WHO THE FUCK IS CHRISTA?

“No.. No I’m fine. Took my time because I have a little headache. The girl is in out class, she did nothing..  Thank you for worrying about me, it can be dangerous these days” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT I PRODUCE WHEN IN A WRITERS BLOCK   
> I congratulate myself on writing the shittiest chapter of all time 
> 
> They eat with hanji, that'sfking it bcaushbe I; m a fukin dick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is terrible, I'm just trying to get out of my writers block my posting this fkin' cow shit

“I hate my life”

“No you don’t Ymir”   Ymir let her hands fly to her hair and breathed heavily. Historia knew that Ymir did hate her life. She hated every single thing she had done in her life at this moment. She hated all she was and she feared- most likely for the first time ever- that someone hated her too. Historia could imagine what a rollercoaster this was for the other as she had never really minded other people before.  

“But I’m a fucking criminal and Maria and fuck, fuck fuck”  Historia smiled softly at Ymir’s panic. It was a silly thing yet she was so glad Ymir cared so much even though she usually never showed it.  “I don’t fucking know why I agreed to this. Why did I fucking-”  

She put her hand on Ymir’s cheek and looked straight into her eyes. A smile on her face. A sad smile, one full of emotion. She hadn’t been so happy in a long time. She had never felt so complete.. like.. like she was alive. That was the feelings. She felt like she really was something, like she existed. Like she didn’t just go with it all. Ymir’s eyes full of panic made her feel that way, the rebellion did. The love she held for the pain the other brought.  “Thank you, Ymir..”

“Don’t thank me, I dragged you into this”

That would have been more logical wouldn’t it?  “Actually I don’t think that’s right.. I forced this thing onto you with my questioning”  

Not that either one of them cared about such a thing. They fell into it together and somewhere along the fall they started holding each other to feel safer. They dragged each other down when the other could have stopped and they pulled each other up when the other was falling too hard. It wasn’t about ‘who’ it was about ‘why’. Why hadn’t they stopped themselves earlier?

“It turned out to be a good thing though.. I think”

Historia laughed silently “Did it?”

Slowly Ymir let her head fall onto her shoulder, her eyes closed and a smile on her face. Warm breath on her shoulder filled her up with happiness. Her heart was beating all through her body as she turned her head towards Ymir and let it rest with her nose into Ymir’s muff hair.  “I don’t know, but I have never felt so at ease” she muttered.

They stayed like that for quite a while. Their eyes closed and breathing in each others air. Historia was still filled with questions about Ymir but decided to keep them for herself as she was afraid of the answer that came with them. Was Ymir in love with a girl? Did she have sex with them?  Then how did she do that and didn’t she feel at ease at those moments? Did she love them? Did she love her? Did she love her more? Did she.. did she want such a thing with her or did they have a never black and white relationship? An unnamed friendship?  

“What’s up?”

“Nothing” she mumbled quickly, trying not to look in Ymir’s eyes as she pulled back.

“Well alright fucking Christa, your heart must have sped up like that without a reason”

Historia grunted “Don’t call me Christa, Ymir, not you too”

“It’s another word for liar”

“I know that, I am her everywhere except from with you”  

Ymir played took her hand and started playing with her fingers, apologetic maybe “Alright fine.. just-”

“I am just afraid of what might happen in a while alright?  Also.. could you not tell them about you being.. erm, I mean, liking girls?”

“Is that what you were worried about?” she nodded hesitating, not wanting to be Christa with Ymir but then again not wanting to tell all  “Alright.. alright, I’ll keep still”

She pretended she didn’t see the frown on Ymir’s face, or the lost look she held. As if that cocky smile was real and Ymir didn’t care about what she thought of her sexuality. Which she did. Historia knew Ymir cared. Though they’d both deny it.

 

The door opened. Ymir shot up and then realized she didn’t know why; she didn’t know where to go or what to do. Instead she just shot Historia a devastated look.  

“Christa? I brought some nice things! We got money today and-” the second she saw Ymir she shut up. Then she smiled brightly and a little creepily.  “Hello, you must be Ymir”

Ymir coughed and awkwardly tried to smile; something she was absolutely terrible at “ah, yeah that would be me”

“Good! My name is Hanji”  Hanji gave Ymir a stern and forced hand and then went into the kitchen “I’m making potatoes with beef and some veggies!”Historia saw Ymir’s eyes widen. She probably hadn’t had any meat in forever. Let stand good beef. It wasn’t something daily or even weekly for Historia anymore either. As the products started getting less and more expensive. Yet the days her father send money were like a feast for them.  Hanji would buy tobacco and coffee, new tea so hers wouldn’t be diluted and bitter.  

“ oh and ymir?”  Hanji called, and as soon as she had Ymir’s attention she threw a pack of tobacco her way. Ymir caught it in the air, as her reflexes were one of the most amazing things she had ever seen.   “Roll me and yourself one will ya?”

Ymir seemed to almost choke at how friendly Hanji was being. They were being rebellious and social disappointments. It was a bad thing. The whole world, except from the president, was telling them.

Yet Ymir did as she was told. The frown disappeared and she looked a little more comfortable.  Historia started helping Hanji meanwhile, and after a while Ymir tried to join, her skills surprisingly good. Though she could have expected that; as Ymir didn’t have anyone who took care of her. She could cook, she could fight, she could heat herself and fall asleep when there were wolfs howling.  Ymir needed no one to take care of her, not her, not anyone. It pained her a little to realize such a thing.

Hanij and Ymir talked carefully but quite a lot. Hanji kept her interests in preternatural beings to herself as much as she could and Ymir did the same with her egoism. It was lovely really. "Ymir, sweetheart, let me tell you something" Hanji took a breath of her tobacco "If you are ever in danger, I know some people in Maria and I'll give you-."

"I don't need someone, mam'"  

"Yes you do. You need someone because else my Christa will try to help you"

"Hanji-"  I started.

"No, Im just giving her the chance. I don't know what you girls are doing, but if you ever get in a situation where neither one of you can do something I want you two to be safe"

"It won't happen"

"Ymir, you might think you can protect someone else because you can protect yourself. But soon you'll find out that's not the case"  Hanji took a paper and quickly scribbled some addresses on it.  Then shoved it over to Ymir. She quickly prayed Ymir would just take it and not make a big scene. Luckily, Ymir shoved it into her pocket and mumbled a soft "Thank you, hanji" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry you had to read that, I hope your day and faith in humanity are both okay 
> 
>  
> 
> Hey ho please stab me fo sho


	9. Eyes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Historia spends a day in Maria.

When historia was little she once burned her hands. She had cried and cried but no one listened. She had tried to keep air from blowing on it by hiding it but it didn't go away. It didn't bleed. She was just panicking, searching for something new, searching for a wound to cure.

Now, she realised that the saying 'eyes burning into you' fit the feeling quite well. Just hiding, no wounds to be seen, panick and holding softly.

"Ymir"

"Ain't no one can do anything against me Historia."

She looked up. Ymir wasn't looking at her. She was glaring at every single thing and person around them. People were yelling and sirens were calling non stop. It was nothing much compared to where Ymir used to live; it was quiet there, people lived in fear, police didn't dare to come there. Ymir mentioned that they'd head there soon too.

She was wearing a dark brown scarf on on he head, a old sweater of ymir's. Her eyes shot from side to side to Ymir, to another side. People were trying to sell them rotten fruits. People stared at them. Everyone said something to ymir; ymir either didn't answer or she answered by glaring.

While I had a hard time understanding why she had to put up with people staring and greeting, Ymir had found this very usual as 'lots of people are safer than a few'  she was highly starting to doubt her only other but there was no going back either. Somewhere she had managed to shut it all out; Ymir's hand found hers, and when she stroke it she felt Ymir's 'bite' mark. It made her feel both reassured and terrified. It was scary that she had let her curiosity get so far that her whole life was now in the hands of those her people despised. Her survival instincts were winning from her everlasting curiosity. But her lust for Ymir kept her up right.

Now she wanted no more people fighting.

No more Maria.

She wanted no more begging for money she didn't have because Ymir had taken it away for her own safety.

No more dogs barfing, sirens calling, people screaming and eyes tearing her and her love apart.

"Soon. We'll be there soon" ymir kept on whispering. She didn't know if Ymir had been lying or if this was her first time noticing that time was subjective.

Eventually- not soon though- they came to a calmer part between the centre of the prohibitory and the woods where Ymir lived. "You get lost here and you're as good as dead"  was the major reaction to the silent parts they were walking in. The doors were shut and the windows blocked. "I once lived here, one of these apartments" the other pointed at a horrid looking apartment that smelled like piss. It had no windows, making it easy to get the vomit and piss smell to get in.  Though from what she had seen, she felt like she could safely say that Ymir had probably been happy she had a house what so ever.

"Ymir!" A screeching female voice screamed from behind them; a sigh from ymir's side as she turned.  The girl seemed to be panicking.  "Hi, Ymir, I- I have been searching for you everywhere and forever!"  The girl had tears in her eyes, her voice was shaking heavily. She felt bad for the other. "Why are you gone? Why can't I stay by your side? I- I'll work hard Ymir.. I love you, please-" her eyes found Historia "Is she your new girl? Is that why!?-"

"Vi, shut up, go to Reiner or something"

"He only cares for men. Ymir… you are the only one I trust. Why am I not enough?! I fucking- I just fucking can't life-"

Ymir opened her mouth "She is." Not what any of them had expecting. Her heart skipped; Ymir was talking about her. "I'm not having sex with you again"

Historia swallowed; hell, she had thought about having sex with the other but having same sex sex pushed into her face like that still terrified her. "but-"

"I will keep protecting you, vi, you can live under my name and protection, the other girls too. They will leave you alone, I just don't- I don't need the pay anymore"

The girl cried and fell through her knees. As if they had no bones anymore. Flat on her face. Crying into the hard stone. "thank you Ymir"

Turned out the girl had never been jealous; she was fearing for her life. It was something she had seen, but never in this proportion. Never had she seen people begging on their knees, for money, for their life, for love, for someone to hush them to death. But people were hard here, they had become blind for beggars.

"Historia" Ymir started walking; ignoring the girl; feeling her pain and fear, maybe her jealousy and love too. "I have a few girls like her" she swallowed away the idea that Ymir was pure, forever. "Those girls can't get into a safe business, they own money by whoring themselves out. They are lucky they got rid of all the raping. But that business usually isn't safe either, so these girls and the titans- a powerful and respected community- made a deal. They take in some of the girls, as girlfriends, hosts and whores, and the girls.. well, they pay for safety by doing what they do"

"She looked like she loves you though"

"Well, it's not like they were assigned to me. I chose her and they could have gotten worse. Someone abusive with well.. a big penis"

She felt warm and looked down; both embarrassed at Ymir's words and the fact that Ymir was one of the kind Titans. That she admitted this.  

"So you chose her?"

"Uhu"

"And you made love to her?"

"Jup"

"So you love them?"

"No.. it just isn't enough anymore"

"Why?"

"Historia I swear to fuckin-"

She glared up, Ymir stopped talking "It's important. Please"

They looked at each other. The air thick. Ymir swallowed heavily and eventually looked away, into the empty street.  "Once you fall in love, mere satisfaction seems like nothing."

She left it there. She got what Ymir was saying, still doubted if it was about her. Sure the chance was there but today was yet another one to prove the fact Ymir had a whole and wild life besides her.

It was just that; Ymir had been the reason she had started to hate her friends, she was the reason she fought and failed her people. Sure she had all she needed but love- she old loved Ymir. The mysterious darkness, the orders in order to take care of her, the coffee sipping moans and melancholic nights alone with the other in her mind. No one had described love to her, ever, but she assumed this was love; if not, then what was? What was this extreme? What was this painful and beautiful?

It wasn't a big thing to realize. Because she didn't care. She didn't care about her own life or anything else. She wanted to scream 'take me down, I am a titan lover!'

Shame on her friends.   
Shame on her father.

Shame on her.

One win for Ymir.

She wanted that. She liked that idea. Only at that moment though, in a usual day there were four minutes out of twentyfour hours where she didn't feel afraid.

They got to a small house in the woods. The only explanation Ymir gave was "Ain't got gass or water but apart from that's it's pretty great" She believed Ymir. Sure, she didn't know where she had  do her business or how she did anything at night time but it looked nice. Small and warm. Ymir did have a fire in her living room. A table and some food in her kitchen. A few sheets, blankets and such. It was the best place she had seen all day.

Ymir looked at her, questioning and hopeful eyes "I like it. It feels like home.. more than my place"

She had never loved anything anyone said as much as the time Hanji said 'okay' to them heading into Maria to see Ymir's house. Ymir had promised lots of things; to keep her safe and sound; to feed her properly; to not smoke all of hanji's tobacco next time.  Historia was still glad Hanji had allowed them; she understood Ymir better, even the fearing for her life was gone now that they were behind the wooden door.

Ymir moved closer -an emotional smile on her face- and softly pushed the dark scarf of her head. "I'm glad"  

Historia embraced Ymir and felt the other lay her forehead on her shoulder. Kiss her neck softly.  "I understand a little better now.. You have so much going on here.. a history so big I will never know all.. people-"

"I want to forget the past and the world for a bit, never talk to anyone else again"  It sounded grumpy, but the words hit her deeply.  

"What-?"   Ymir looked into her eyes. Then slowly moved forward; pressed her lips onto her forehead and smiled. As if she had been hushed to silence by darkness.  She understood what Ymir meant. That all of the world was them, and they'd stay as small as they had been before.

Historia loved how much Ymir cursed when making a fire. She blew on her hands and watched it in amusement. Ymir, couldn't consetrate because of her. Kept on saying things like 'I told you were cold', 'I shouldn't have let you come without a jacket' and 'I'll make tea'. The longer it took, the lesser she believe in the statements, though when Ymir had finally lit the fire she cheered slightly and Ymir, once again, held one of her rare, spoud and hopeful smiles. They made her feel special; as if those smiled were reserved for her.

"Give me your hands" she did. Ymir had dark and slender hands, full of marks and scars. They held a story, and painful and burned one. Just like her small and white ones, though hers wasn't as easy to read.

Ymir seemed to read her hands. As she caressed and followed every small part of them. They were yin yang; their hands.

Ymir blew on her hands with closed eyes, her face lit up with red fire, her freckles painting her.. she heated up, slowly but quite radically. Her whole body. Her whole mind. Her whole life.

All she could think was; Care for me.  Don't think about those other girls. Love me. Show me.. teach me.. what that means. She had never been thought what love was, maybe Ymir could.

Night hit. She was laying against ymir, who only moved to keep the fire going. They were making up stories and mixed them with the truth.  "No one knows I live here" Ymir had randomly admitted. Something great to know, because it meant she was unique.

She had answered with "Shall I tell you about my father?"

"Only if you want, because I've got it figured out really "

"You do?"

"Hmh,  I know that if every ignorant person in the world would die; you'd be the heir to the throne.. and Rose and Maria would be at peace because we'd show them how."

She smiled genuinly, a warm feeling swelling up inside of her. Ymir kissed her temple softly. Something that came forward from care, as if Ymir was a mother wolf.

"Ymir, those girls.." the other nodded "Please never see them again"

"Alright" A broken voice; a lot of doubts, probably.

"You're my only friend.."

Even while saying that she realized those words had been stupid. And that they both wanted nothing black and white like friendship.

She was too cowardice to turn it back.

"I know, Historia"

"Know that.. I am yours. Everyone knows Christa but Historia is known by none but you"

Ymir laid down on her crappy one person futon she used as bed "I'm glad"  She laid down next to the other and snuggled her nose into the warm body. The light of the fire was almost gone. The light in their bodies was too, yet she had never felt so damn safe.

 

* * *

 

Historia usually didn't like the smell of morning -specially morning breath and the fire that often represented her country being burned down- but right now she honestly couldn't imagine anything better. Ymir's arms were around her, her face into the elder's breast. Breathing was one, melodic, soft. The war was gone. Silent. No Maria's were killing Rose's. No titan's were fighting or stealing. No one judged them for who they loved. It was silent, closed, cold, sweet.

Gone.

Everything but Ymir was gone.

For hours she studied Ymir. Because she knew, that if Ymir was enough to fill every single thing her life held.  Her skin the earth, dark, brown, strong and uneven. Ymir held her hand as she moved away to see more. It was gravity, keeping you steady.  Her breath was air, her hair were nature, her eyes fire. Every single word Ymir'd speak counted for one person that fell away, who she no longer needed.  

Ymir's freckles were stars. Stars are stories. Stories are books. Books are love. Love is Ymir.  

She counted in her head and then thought about all Ymir would give her. Harassment, isolation and death. She saw herself with a blue eye and a broken nose. She saw herself with a strop around her neck. She felt Ymir's energy.

"Hmm" Ymir moaned slightly as she turned to snuggle into her chest "Historia"

She focussed on what had been a fire; and what was now burned, black wood.  The opposite of Ymir, maybe?   "I'm here"  

That made Ymir smile sweetly, a satisfied noise coming from between her bearably parted lips.

Breakfast was full of laughs. Ymir looked even more tired than usual and she said it was because it was the first time she wasn't. Historia believed her; she did look happy. As if Ymir had finally given up on trying to prove she was tough and had started planning ways to appear truthful.  "historia.."

"hm?"

Ymir placed one slice of old bread in front of her and then sat down on the other side of the table "Shall I try to get your earrings back?"

A silence fell over the room. She had forgotten Ymir had sold them. She had forgotten the way those earrings burned against her skin.  "no.. no need"

"But-"

"Please don't ever give them back. It's empty and painful memories and I don't want you pushing them onto me too. Not you. Anyone but you"

Ymir smiled kindly and held out her hand to take. She did. Ate the disgusting bread and swallowed heavily.

She didn't want the moment to end.

It did.

Ymir and she walked together until they got close to Rose again. Then Ymir backed off until they were just in each other' sight. Even if the countryside was quite empty. Her legs were hurting and she felt alone. Touching and holding Ymir's hand was like connecting their hands, and they could go apart; a bloodvessel between them, stretching more and dangerously as they went farther apart.

She could feel the others protecting eyes burning into her- like said before; ymir's eyes were like fire.  They burned all that dared to look at her while they went over the now non existing - or mythological -  border between Maria and Rose.

Two people were coming her way in the far distance. She peaked over her shoulder and smiled at Ymir reassuringly. Ymir nodded in return and she kept walking. People came closer. Two men.

Quickly, she recognized one of them;  it was no one other that Jean kirschtein.

Then, short after the other man came into vision properly. Marco bodt.

Their eyes stood terrified. Never had she seen such great fear in the eyes of men.  As if the world was ending, as if they were about to die. Those things were both right next to what they had been caught doing; associating.

Jean's seemed to want to turn and walk away in his panick, wishing she hadn't seen "Jean"

He stopped. "Fuck- I fuck, Christa I-"

"Jean calm down"

"This is not-"

"Jean!" She looked behind her. Ymir was no where to be seen. Back to The two; Marco seemed to be fearing as much as Jean but he stood protectively. He was ready to lay down a few punches for Jean. He didn't want to, but he was ready.  Jean swallowed; he wasn't ready for anything "You ought to be more careful"

"They'll fucking kill me, Christa, they'll kill me.. Marco I told you this was no goddamn option, I should've gotten the damn tattoo and igno-"

"Jean shut the fuck up" Jean's eyes widened at her change, 'meet Historia' she thought. "Look behind me"

They both did. "I see nothing"

"Exactly.."  She looked behind her too. "Now try to punch me"

"No. No I won't do that, are you crazy"

"Just do it" whispered.

"No"

She didn't know why she was doing this but she felt like she had to. It wasn't safe but it sure as hell made her feel safe. There were people like her. Damn it, this was Jean. Jean lived in Sina. He belonged to the richest part of the city. He was on her level, if not higher, and he was with a Maria. For all she knew he loved a Maria, because else he would have never given up as much.

"HELP!"

An answer to Jean. Suicide. A proven point; Ymir stood in the middle of the road with a gun directly aimed at Jean within seconds. Jean froze. His gask heard by all. Marco had moved to stand in front of Jean so quickly it surprised all three of them.  Maria's were used to having something to protect.

Ymir didn't fire. She just mumbled "what the actual fuck" and came a little bit closer.

"Jean, it's an eye for an eye.. Just make sure no one knows"

They all breathed.

It was an eye for an eye.

It felt great. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please share your thoughts!


	10. worth it

“Please teach me how to fight”

Ymir swallowed some of her coffee; Hanji and her were having money for a class and Ymir enjoyed this fulheartlidly. She was just hooked, she said it was because ‘coffee is a minus, I am a minus, so together we’re fine. Two times minus equals plus’  to which she had replied with ‘then what about us?’ . Aparently it wasn’t right for two people together to be plus or minus. They needed to be balanced, perfectly zero. The two of them were zero.. or grey, paper with ink on it, the world with both land and ocean.    

“Why the fuck would I do that?”  

Jean- who was standing in her kitchen- seemed to be terrified. It wasn’t the first time she had seen Jean wear such a look when he saw Ymir. Maybe her first threats - the ones about him not surviving because of money- were still ringing in his mind with every single thing he asked her.  “Because you know what kind of place I am in! You know Marco, you know the situation, you are in the same situation.”

She stood slightly behind Ymir, a cup of tea in her hands and the other’s warm aura in front of her. Ever since she because close with Ymir she had had a hard time leaving her side. Maybe this time it wasn’t the right choice. Maybe this time she needed to support Jean. She didn’t.  “Your situation hah? You think you’ve got to protect Marco? Boy, you haven’t seen these country boys do what they are good at. Once we broke in at a farm and you know what? Some got beaten’ up by these eldest son’s. They don’t fight like we do but they fight to survive too.”

“I know” Jean’s voice was far from cocky now, if not gone.

Ymir stood up “You got a relationship with that boy?”   She was sure Ymir was going to give every single person in this world a heart attack with her unnatural standards. But just as she thought that, Jean nodded silently.  “You’re going to get hung, both you and him”

“D-Do you think I- I haven’t thought about that!? I think about that, always, every day, every night, every time I’m not with him! I fucking know!”

She had a hard time imagining what Jean felt like; Ymir’s killer presence stood above everyone else's, accept from maybe annie’s,  but Marco and Jean.. they were just trying to love, they would be dead if one saw.   “Ymir..”  she whispered.

“Yes hi- “  Ymir swallowed the unknown name away. Her voice soft, so there was a small chance Jean had heard anyway; too shocked by her sudden change.

“Please.. it’ll be good, to have people like us. Specially when it’s someone from a family like Jean’s. The presidents might get what they want but in order to achieve that we need to survive.. Ymir, you-”

“Fine”  Dark eyes left her and focussed on the terrified male “you! you walk H-Christa home, I walk behind you so far I can just see you, don’t try anything, when here I get in from the back. If someone robs the two of you don’t make it worse, I’ll handle it. Understand?”   Jean nodded, wide eyed.  “Tell the farm boy it’s payback for the time I stole cabbage of their land when I was younger”  

She laughed a little; it was amazing that Ymir had killed, fought and stolen yet remembered every single thing she had done. And at times like this, she wanted to make them right, not so she could be right, just so she could be right for her.

From that moment she walked home with Jean every Monday and Friday. Sometimes they’d get stared at, but no Rose dared to speak about their jealousy. The jackets, the nice shoes, the blonde hair, the light skin. They sometimes smiled at each other and knew they were thinking the same thing: ‘if only they knew about our love’

After about a minute Ymir came through the back door, cursing about some random stuff and the first few times whining about Jean being there. Even if she had agreed to him coming.  

They cleaned the basement so that all the things that could break were gone. When she explained to Hanji she a speech of excitement washed over her ‘you are the revolution!’ I quote. She didn’t really see why her being the revolution was something good; no one wanted a revolution, no one wanted a change.  

Back to the basement. Ymir, beating up Jean. Literally. Both her and Jean had thought that ‘teaching how to fight’ would go kindly, with explanation. Ymir had no such thing in her mind. She fought with him a few times, leaving Jean laying on the ground, black and blue. The only explanation she ever gave was “Fighting is knowing you are weak, once you know that you get a thick skin and skills. Slowly build the confidence back up. It’s breaking and standing up in every way”

If Ymir had done anything it was letting Jean know how weak he really was, so she guessed they were on schedule. She always watched. Sure she had asked Ymir to teach her too but now that she saw ymir fight she knew why Ymir had brushed it off with an “i’ll teach you later in different ways.

Jean seemed to gave up every single day. When at school the school uniform wasn’t able to hide the swollenness of his face and he had to think of different excuses every single time. While the one he was doing it for was watching him from the back. She knew how it felt. Even the walks home with Ymir a hundred meters away from her hurt her, because not being near Ymir hurt her. Jean helped her through it. The secret glances at their other half, the smiles they shared. The way people asked “are you two dating or something?” while they both knew more than better.

On the days between Monday and Friday they had their time together. The spend it simple and nice. “I’m afraid, like him”  she had told Ymir one day.

Ymir’s arms were wrapped around her and their breaths were one “Of what?”

“You. You fighting and me not being able to help”

“I wouldn’t want you too”

She smiled “I know that.. but if you can imagine what it would be like if they killed me-”

“I wouldn’t let them”

“shh, ymir, let me explain” Ymir nodded “Imagine them killing me, you watching, not being able to help. For me that feeling is the same, but the chance is a lot bigger”

“I can protect myself”  

The words were empty words to both of them. Lied. Ignorant. They gave them some kind of peace but at the same time the way they looked right through the lie was painful. The way Ymir held her a little bit tighter was painful; because it was her admitting the truth.  “Ymir..” she whispered.

“it’s fine.. You live under your name, I live honestly.. don’t you think we have already lived longer than we would have if we hadn’t met each other?”  she nodded “well then, dying might be worth it, eventually”

Ymir was right. So she placed my head against the other and let her whole being fill her. With herself. With the realization she was able to be herself finally. That she was able to live now.  

Softly she breathed into her ear, both very aware of the unnatural way. From time to time she’d softly press her lips against her temple or hair but it was never enough to be called a kiss.

She wanted a kiss.

She was afraid to ask.  Words had connected them once, now it was the silence.

“Ymir..”  She felt a nod against her cheek. Her eyes were closed. “Do you love me? For the meaning of the word, just a clear view, you don’t have to but-”

“I do”

“Ah..”  a long silence hit the room. It was getting quite warm. The closeness with Ymir was slowly getting more uncomfortable. She leaned away, her heart beating in her throat.

“spit it out” Ymir mumbled.

She swallowed heavily and didn’t have the guts to even open her eyes. Relying on her ears though, wasn’t the smartest move “In what way?”

“You know in what way”

“No”  

She finally opened her eyes, only to see that the other’s dark ones were focussed on the ground, a frown above “In whatever way you want”

“Alright..” Finally. Thank all eternally. They looked at each other. It was the most relieving and emotional thing she had ever done.  “I’ll think about it, for the time being just stick with loving me”

“Fine, I can do that”

 

Marco was honestly the nicest boy she had met. He had Jean under his thumb and he made you like him. It was as if it was a special talent; when he talked you wanted to listen and be brave. It explained why Jean liked him; Jean was a man with lack of hope and faith in humanity.  The first time he came over Ymir was not having it; it was dangerous, foolish, even her going alone was eye catching, they’d attack Marco if they went together, she didn’t give a fuck if her neighborhood was calm.  Ymir was all bark and no bite when if came to her. Ymir giving in to her was something she dared to put money on.

She made Marco a cup of coffee and fixed Jean a glass of water as he was used to having ‘good coffee’ whatever that meant she didn’t know; even the coffee they had costed tons with all the boycotting going on.

“So how’d you meet?” Marco had once asked, they were watching the other two tear each other apart. Jean almost being able to do something now.

“I was being robbed, on the way to being raped and then Ymir showed up” Marco sighed dreamily, she felt kind of bad for adding “Then she stole my necklace and earrings”

“And what happened next?”

“I got obsessed with erm.. I’m sorry can I-” she swallowed “I was very interested in Maria and Ymir taught me about it”

“Of all kind Maria’s, you chose Ymir..” He didn’t quite seem to get it.

“Out of all people, not even Maria, I’d still choose her. I’m not looking for someone kind, I’m looking for someone real and capable”

Marco smiled and nodded “I see”

“what about you two”

This made him light up “Well, Jean had ran away from home because he couldn’t handle the pressure of being spoiled at this time of war. Which used to fail to understand but I’m getting there. He was near the road to my home, it’s a calm road, as you know since you two take it too. Anyway, I found him there, so I sat down next to him and asked him what was wrong. He ignored me for about an half hour, just staring into the nothing. And then, out of the blue, he asked me ‘how much money do you want?’ and I didn’t understand so I asked him what he meant.. he meant he wanted to sleep with me. He had heard, he knew, had figured out, that I was gay and he thought I’d whore myself out, because I’m poor. ‘ I have money, jackets, food for your whole family’”  He laughed to himself  “I told him that it didn’t work that way; that he wouldn’t figure anything out about love with boys by doing that and then I kind of.. I just asked him for a walk into the woods, and we kept doing that, day after day we walked into the woods. He gave me something small everyday; food mainly. And then eventually a jacket for my mother to wear, one for me, shoes for my brother.. I told him to stop but he said that I’d repay him, by showing him life outside of the walls made of money. I did.-”

“Marco the fuck are you spouting?” Jean yelled.

“Story about you”

“It’s nobody’s damn business”

Marco laughed a little “Sure”  He didn’t even take Jean’s yells serious.

She giggled. She had never really enjoyed having friends but maybe it was because of all the lies that came with it. She liked this. She liked hanging out with them.. She wondered if maybe.. if she told everyone about her real name and personality they wouldn’t mind, and it’d be nice.

What would she say about Ymir though? They would hate that.

“Okay that’s enough for today, I’m leaving” Ymir said as she walked away from Jean, all eyes on her. Ymir didn’t like it when they weren’t connected fully, her attention had to be Ymir’s. She was more honored than annoyed.

“Ymir please stay for dinner”

“Jup, We were leaving anyway, going to make a walk” Marco said.

Ymir snorted at that “Yeah right, a walk, I know what burns the same amou-”

“Ymir” She shut up, walked up to her and then draped her arms around her childishly, mumbling some meaningless whines.

When the two left Ymir finally said what needed to be said. She liked having the two around but she was awkward with the whole getting friends thing. It hadn’t been planned, to get a group of mixed friends. Falling in love with her and having that in mind was troubling enough. She didn’t like her smiling at Marco and Jean because they’d die. They were men and people keep even more eyes on men than on woman. Because man are seen as stonger and so more dangerous. Their friends would die and then they’d die. She didn’t want her worrying about such things, because the way she had just laughed said that she’d get her ass kicked for the two.

“Ah I see” she had answered.

“Can’t it just be the two of us?”

“It’s levels, Ymir, they are on the nice level, you are on the life giving love level”

She still didn’t like it. At all.

 

School is scary when you are holding a secret. Everything is scary when you hold a secret. You can’t guess, the amount of times someone whispered ‘we need to get those Maria’s out of here’, you can’t imagine how quick people figured out about the fact that ‘titan’s exist and we’re all dead if they come here’ no one knew they already were there though. Only her and Jean. They saw each other die a little more every day. Every time someone whispered the word titan. Their heart gave up more and more.

The rumors traveled quickly. Even though nobody knew more than the fact they existed. Everyone on Rose bought a gun. Old people screaming things among the lines of “If I see one I’m shooting ‘em”

And she died slowly.

The more people figured out the more she died. Every day she waited at home for Ymir to come and every second she waited was torture; what if they figured about the mark and killed Ymir. They didn’t even need much of an excuse; just lies towards the police.   
It happened. Ymir got home late,  It was a thursday, one of the day's Jean left them to be and Hanji was off to do whatever she did for insane illegal work. It wasn’t seconds, it was hours. After two hours she went outside. Her heart beating in her head and tears streaming down her cheek. She was void. She was empty. The whole world made a screeching noise, she couldn’t even hear her own thoughts anymore.

The world was as empty and afraid as she was. It seemed to be left alone too. There were little people and all the trees were empty, black and breakable. The sky was white. Thin clouds, no sun, no rain.

Her legs didn’t like her and they didn’t work without Ymir near her. She kept on going though. Get closer to Ymir. Keep walking. Get closer. She’s somewhere. Hear her cries, feel her blood, swallow her love and doubt. Cheater, liar.

She thought of not being the last person Ymir had kissed if they had indeed died. She thought about her friends, all bleeding until empty, because she was a traitor.

She wouldn’t even go back.

“princess-”  she heard a whisper.

Her heart sped up, she turned to the noise and cried before even seeing the other. She ran.

“Ymir, Ymir, Ymir-” She choked on her words. The other was lying against the wall, hidden between and behind dumped trash. Closed eyes and deep breaths. Too deep. Painful. “What happened?”

Ymir clenched her teeth together before speaking through them “my leg”

It was wrapped up in Ymir’s vest, she only noticed her not wearing it now. She softly touched it. Drenched in blood.  She took the vest off, there was a hole in her leg, black and full of blood, a shoe lace was tied above it. As if Ymir had seen it coming as if her getting shot was something fucking normal. She had once thought it was.

Hyperventilating.

She wanted to puke.

“I’m getting hanji”

“No”

“Ymir!” She screamed, making Ymir shrink in pain.

Breath in. Breath out. In. Out. In. Out. It once seemed to simpel  “You wash your hands, you avoid everyone.. I am hidden”

She couldn’t care less. Without listening to a word Ymir had said she walked off. Her mind was blank. She stared at her bloody hands and all she could remember were were words Ymir had told her;  ‘dying might be worth it’ . Because they had thought each other to live. They were each other’s life and honesty now. They were going to live together or die trying.

Ymir wouldn’t agree on that one.

 

When Hanji saw her she stood up and knew. She knew without asking.  They ran, Hanji following her every step.  No word was spoken between them

Ymir had closed her eyes. She didn’t look up as they walked on. “No, no , no fuck, fuck, Ymir she-”

“She blacked out, she’s breathing.. It’s a normal reaction”

Breath in. Breath out. Breath in. Breath.  They walked to their home. Not even caring about who saw them. Ymir’s life was at stake and neither one of them cared. Even Hanji had learned to love Ymir like a daughter of hers. And she would be- if just she’d.. survive.

Hanji put Ymir on the kitchen table because of the light and screamed for things she needed. She ran and ran. Ice to close the damaged blood vessel.  Clean towels. Get the shoelace away and push the wound closed.

She did as she was told. Wide eyed. Whispering so softly only she and Ymir could hear it. Not words.. Just reassuring breaths. Maybe love too.

 

Ymir slept in her bed.

They were both breathing, that’s what was most important. Hanji trusted the situation again and had left to explain to her fellows. Now she was left alone, watching the woman she lover sweat and moan in pain. Her hushing and holding didn’t work for once. It tore down all she had for Ymir and this was a first time.  

She sung songs, she read books aloud. It’s not that Ymir slept long, averagely seen, it’s just that time is subjective, and Ymir once again proved it.

It’s funny how a person becomes beautiful once you realize you care. And it’ s amazing how long you can stare once you realize someone is beautiful to you. Historia knew the quote ‘ love yourself before you love someone else’  and now she realized the danger of not following this quote. Because she hadn’t, now she was as good as dead, also deadly in love.

“you know.. Ymir.. I love you”  It was quite an easy thing to say when the other was asleep. No one could hear her. Not Ymir. Not her future murders.  “the thing is, I haven’t felt this alive before. To have something to protect.. and have it slipping out of your hands it’s-”  she stopped talking. She was being crazy; talking to herself.

Ymir slept through that evening and woke up the middle of the night. She had wanted to lay next to her but due to her condition and the fact that being a lesbian wasn’t accepted, she didn’t.  She had fallen asleep on the chair next to her bed. Holding the other’s hand tightly. Just don’t let her slip away, was all she thought.

Downstairs she heard voices. It was Levi. He was talking harshly while Hanji was almost begging. A cocky undertone still. “Why would I protect the kid from being killed for being a titan? You know I used to be in charge on the group that went out to learn and kill ‘em”

“Because it’s my house, my kid and because I know you. I know you better than anyone else, levi”

“that-”

“Not the point, please Levi! I have helped you, I have. I just need to make sure no one saw and has a fit of anger. It’s only for today..”  
The talking stopped soon after. Silence hit but never did she hear Hanji’s bedroom door open or close. They were sitting in the kitchen, she knew, they were trying to protect them.

 

It was about 4am when Ymir woke up. She had been asleep but wasnt sure how and when that had happened; it couldn’t have been long. Sleeping with the idea of Ymir wounded was horrid.  “Historia.. His-”  it was a pained moan. It stopped when she quickly breath in through her teeth, then breath out the word “fuck”

She shot up. Her eyes wide. She couldn’t do more than reach out, hoping Ymir was healthy enough to hold her, even if it was without pation. Ymir smiled sadly and draped her arms around her, breathing heavily, as if that movement was like fighting a war to her. Maybe it was.  “Hey princess.. I’m fine”  Her tears fell onto the other’s neck. “I’m fine.” she repeated.

Their breaths were one. Unnatural and panicked. Loud because something had to fill the silence of the world. “I thought you had died”

“You think too lightly of me”

And maybe she did. Maybe Ymir was the only thing that could never die. Not in the real world. Not in her mind. Her mind was constantly filled with the other, no matter how hard she tried to kill those thoughts.

If only Ymir was as immortal in real life.  “I thought about.. about in what way I want you to love me”

“I had to get shot for that?”

She laughed softly, but her nervous killed the noise. Then Ymir’s eyes caught hers, suddenly serious. She wanted to know. She had died to know. At the moment she thought getting shot was worth it. That’s what her eyes said. Not said; screamed.  “Well.. I-” Words too thick for her thin, breakable throat  “I want you to love me as in..”  how would she say such a thing? How would she say she’d loose all, from her first kiss to her life and dignity, for the other? How does one do that? Make love to me, hold me, die for me, be illigal for me, kiss me?

She knew.

“As in-” She leaned towards Ymir, looked at her lips and closed her eyes slightly. She just hoped that would be enough as she had no idea what she was doing.

A hand on her cheek. Lips on hers, pushing them apart, a tongue in her mouth; unplanned, she hadn’t known.  The tongue moved to massage her mouth aggressively. The hand held her face almost too tight, but the passion fixed it. Somewhere, Ymir clenched her jaw together, they both knew she was in pain and in a dangerous stance.  

She pulled back “Ymir-”

Ymir wasn’t having it. She glared and pushed her lips back. She had been shot. She had been hurt and messed with and now, for the first time, she wasn’t having it. Historia saw; her pulling back would hurt more than seeing her parents leave and then fighting and fighting and fighting without having anything to protect.

She pulled back “shh.. calm down”  Ymir did.

With all the power she had left, she leaned in and pecked Ymir’s lips as soft as she could. Soft and sweet. A bomb of emotion welled up inside of her. A smack in the face; she was fucked. Her heart was jumping away, it was painful.

“Lay down. You’re in pain”

“worth it” Ymir smirked.

“You got shot, ymir”

Two warm hands went into her neck and the dark forehead was put against hers. Lips close “Would do it all over again”

She laughed “Bullshit”

 

 


	11. The first steps

> ** hope **
> 
> ****
> 
> **_noun_ **
> 
>  
> 
>   1. a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen.
>   2. a feeling of thrust 
> 
> 

> 
>  

 

“Step slowly and carefully”

“This is nothing”

“Carefull.. if you walk without breaking down again you get a reward”  Now that made Ymir light up. She pushed herself up from the ground and held the walking stick tightly. “No cheating just because you have strong arms”

A sigh came from the other side but a foot was put on the ground while Ymir hissed. One step. Another one. Two dark brown eyes burned her, they longed and her walking seemed to come as something mental only; her body did nothing anymore.  

She stopped Ymir in her pace. It hurt her to see her love hurt herself so much “That’s enough”

Ymir wanted to argue; of course. She wanted to say that it was nothing, that she wasn’t hurting and that she would run a mile for her. Ymir was full of tough bullshit and she knew this too.   “Bu-”

“C’m here” She let Ymir lean on her shoulders and looked into the dark ones. The dark ones that had been burning with longing seconds ago, now they seemed rather satisfied because her water blue ones had calmed them. The water in her eyes had made the fire in Ymir’s die. They didn’t seem to mind it though.. earth is quite lovely too.

She softly pecked Ymir’s lips  “You are doing great”  The other just hummed. With them loving each other came Ymir’s calmth. As if she was finally reasured and wasn’t trying too hard anymore. Her focus wasn’t on women,  stealing, drugs and drinks.. her focus was on keeping both of them alive. Learning to walk again and as soon as possible fight again.

Every day before she went to school Ymir held her back ‘what if something happens and I can’t even stand up?’  she’d beg.  To be honest she didn’t know either. Because she now knew how things like that went, and it was terrible.

She wanted to stay at home too, actually. A lot of days she did stay at home. She’d lay with Ymir and they’d hug until midday. Ymir’s always snuggle into her neck and breath deeper than usual. She kind of understood why; it was intense. At first Ymir had started doing stuff like that, like hugging and breathing differently. Then when she realized what she had always known, that Historia wasn’t going to make a move,  she turned and asked, with their lips almost touching anyway, “Can I kiss you?”

It was beautiful.

* * *

 

When she did go to school she walked with Jean. He walked next to her as if he was trying to keep all of them upright because he too- had started relying on Ymir a little bit. Now he was trying to replace the secure feeling she gave, but it was impossible.

The whole time my head was hurting and her heart was beating for Ymir and her only. She saw nothing else because of the fear of losing Ymir.

“I swear to fucking god if one of these titans is around here, I will kill them” Eren was mumbling when she came their way. She almost felt like smiling up to Reiner and Berthold. She didn’t. Instead she softly bumped into Jean and he smiled reassuringly.  

“Guys I need to tell you something can we.. change the subject?”

Everyone hummed happily while she sat on her usual place. “alright.. you all know how I am adopted right?”  The answers differed between persons but she ignored this. “well I just wanted to be honest with you all and tell you that.. uhm.. that my real name isn’t Christa”  A silence fell. She didn’t know if they didn’t understand or if they didn’t want to accept it yet. Maybe it took a while. Maybe they just had to be offended for a bit; specially Jean, since he knew the rest too.

“My name is Historia Reiss”

“Wait.”  Everyone stared at Eren while he talked “Reiss is the name of-”

“Yes”

A lot of wide eyes. Eren was getting quite excited about it all though “You should claim your place and put the wall back!”

“I- I don’t think I can do such a thing.. the president-” People started yelling through each other. As if this was hope to them. Even though she had lied, even though she was adopted and no one really wanted her, even though her father had five better children.

“You could totally-”  

“yeah and we could sabotage your father”

“No guys, seriously we can’t just use her”

“yeah Chri- fuck okay this is-”

She bit her lip and got annoyed and a little pissed off while everyone was talking through each other about her. She was already regretting telling anyone but her love. She had told her ‘you need to claim back your name’ though, and she just wanted to listen to her. Now she already felt her real her getting through.. then again, what was so bad about that?  “Will you all shut the fuck up? No one is using me”

Everyone was silent once again. Only Jean smiled; he hadn’t known her name but he had known her personality when with Ymir.

Armin swallowed slowly “Historia.. are you okay?”

“Fine, just get used to it”

The conversation ended right there. They all fell into an awkward mood while they stared at the new frown on her face. A frown and an imaginary crown; wasn’t that the way they saw her now? She just wanted to leave and have Ymir kiss both away. Kiss her forehead and bring her the poor criminal life. She didn’t even care. Everything was better than being the princess of racism.  

At the end of the day people were still awfully close to her. Observing her carefully. Waiting for her to speak her mind about her sadness, about her love for snow and knowledge about outcasts. About royalty and blue eyes. Their eyes followed her when she sat down next to Jean who had taken Ymir’s place for the time being. Neither one of them dared to look over at the other side of the room as she had already given away quite something. And it was the first time that people commented on the bags under her eyes.

When school was over and she kept silent. Eren walked next to her and she heard him mumbling something among the lines of “well this is just really weird”

She had literaly snorted at him “Disappointed that I’m not sweet Christa? Surprise; smiling, being nice and being perfect isn’t possible. Sorry to spoil everyones dreams”

Eren chuckled “Disapointed? Not really.. I kind of like this new you you were today” With that he walked off to his two best friends again. He placed his arms around them and probably told them all he had just said. Because that was just the way they were.

She remembered being jealous of how close they were. Warming each other, loving each other, being honest and knowing every useless little detail. A relationship so deep that her old self wouldn’t have been able to imagine it.. now she realized; she wasn’t jealous anymore.  She had a relationship even more meaningful, because it was hers. It was with Ymir, there was nothing she considered more meaningful.   
Fuck. She had given away all she had lived for to hide and she couldn’t care less. She just wanted to get home.

Well not everyone is that easy. Jean walked up to her.  “Hey Historia”  he sounded so damn awkward saying that.

“Yeah?”

“Is today cool? Is she there today?”  He didn’t know Ymir had gotten shot. If he did he’d probably know she was a titan. Then again he was already kind of dense for not realizing by now. No one else was strong like her, only titans.  

“Let’s go for a walk, Jean”  Might aswell get all out.  So they walked away from school for a bit. Into a calm part close to her house, not to Jean’s because he lived in the protected zone. “You see Jean.. Ymir got shot”

“What?”  he seemed to choke. He thought it was because of her being Maria. Because of her loving her. He was thinking about Marco, and maybe he was right to do so; no one had prove Ymir was a Titan but they had shot her for it. Marco looked nice though, she hadn’t known at first.

“Please don’t get mad-”

“I won’t. Tell me what happened”

“Jean, it’s really bad. I need to be able to trust you” Jean nodded in silence, he was afraid again, she was too “Ymir is a Titan”

Jean was so silent she wondered if her whisper had actually reached him. The only sound was the wind. Maybe her voice had really failed her.  “jean?”

“A t-”

“Yeah, please don’t say the word again”

They both stared into the nothing. She awkwardly twisted because she wanted to go home. She was now in her mood of honesty. She wanted to tell Hanji about everything. Kiss Ymir. Cry her eyes out and such.

“Okay”

“What?”

Jean frowned “I believe she hasn’t done harm since she met you.. people change when in love”  Was he being truthful? She had a hard time believing people when it came to such issues. But this was Jean. Jean was in the same place.

No. They had done nothing wrong.

Ymir had stolen from Marco.

Ymir had fought and killed.

Ymir-   “Jean. If you tell anyone, you are dead”

“What? Historia I mean it. I believe in Ymir like I believe in equality and changes. Have you seen me change?!”

She breathed slowly. No one could blame her for slowly getting more insane. “Alright. I believe you”

* * *

 

The door closed behind her. She threw her coat in the hallway and moved to the kitchen. Hanji was sitting by the kitchen table with a book and a cup of coffee. This meant Ymir was still in her bed; usually they sat there together. Smoked and drunk their coffee together while not talking. Just reading books about all kinds of psycho stuff.

“Hanji, I wanted to talk to you” Straight to the point. She was just going to tell her straight away.  “About something personal-”

“Let it wait for a little bit”

“what? Why?”

“Just tell me later” she was smiling like an idiot.

“Bu-” she stopped in the middle of her sentence when she saw Ymir walking in carefully. Close to the wall and her smirk quite painful. But she was walking. Damnit she looked so strong. So lovable.

“Oh my, Ymir!” She wanted to hug Ymir, run up to her. But Ymir stopped her from even taking a step. Mumbling a soft “I’m coming to you”

It would take a while, but that was fine. She smiled brightly while she watched Ymir walk as if it were her first steps. It’s a prove of living, of being a human. Not all too long ago she had been terribly afraid Ymir was dying and slipping through her fingers because she was so damn weak. But Ymir was steady, and she couldn’t just slip through; she was too strong for that.

Hanji looked up for the first time “she’s been practising all day”

“Don’t tell her that shit” Ymir grinned while almost closing the last metre between them. When she finally did she softly placed her tanned and strong arms around her. A soft breath in her ear. “I did it”

“I’m so proud”

“I want you-”  air sucked in as if she was panicking a bit. Then calm again. “I want you to believe me when I say that I’m never leaving you alone. They can cut out my fucking heart and I’ll come walking back to you, even if it’s at a slow pace”

She looked up to see that Hanji had gotten up and left. She swallowed heavily because she believed Ymir. Fuck she believed her. Who the hell gets shot and thinks about another? Who the hell gets a relationship like this.  “They can try to cut out our hearts, but we have done that ourselves already, we shattered them into each other.”

Ymir harshly pushed her lips onto hers. Licked her lips and opened her mouth. Breathed against her. “Bring me upstairs?”

There was no way she could deny, after all, the pieces of Ymir’s heart inside of her, were stronger than her whole being. So she let herself get pushed onto a bed. Ignored the cursing and painful moans the other’s mouth let out.

She didn’t know if this was normal, but the most intense thing about Ymir touching her weren’t Ymir’s rough and beautiful hands. It was her breath. Ymir had this warm breath that hit her ear, that caressed her breast before her mouth did. The combination of her breath, mouth and hands. Just because it was all they had, and it was all for her.

“fuck” Ymir mumbled a few times in pain. But then went on with biting her neck. She gripped her hips heavily and Historia knew that Ymir had hoped and planned this when she bearably knew what love was.

The only thing Ymir hadn’t planned was really falling in love, because she was confident her other had.. maybe for the first time.  She just knew.  

She looked at Ymir. She had freckles all over her body. Her breast were slightly lighter than the rest of her body. Stretch marks interrupted her dark skin. Ymir’s ribs were showing and her belly moved in and out with every breath she breathed into the her mouth. They were soft and meaningful, yet they had no clear meaning. Like abstract art. Like Ymir.  

She took a chance and reached out to Ymir. Pressing their lips together tightly as her hand gripped the other. Soft kiss, deep kiss, sweet kiss, forehead kiss with hands all over her.

“Ymir..” she whispered, Ymir’s hand caressing her softly, her heart beat loud “I love you”

Ymir smiled and kissed her face on every single spot “Yeah I got that” Then her mouth “I love you too.. obviously”

“asshole”  Ymir smirked and put her lips between her breast. For a second she thought her words would be ignored but Ymir -as the asshole she is- blew as hard as she could. A huge farting noise filling the whole room and Ymir laughing loudly and half naked.  “Oh my god you didn’t just”

Ymir just kept laughing while pecking her lips “revenge” She snuggled into her and kissed her in all the right places.

“Oh no, this is terrible”  They both laughed and wondered, had they ever lived before?

Maybe you need to die to live again.

* * *

 

“Hanji”

“yess, girlss”  Ymir was leaning on her shoulder. She smelled a little bit like Ymir and sweat. She hoped Hanji wouldn’t notice, then again Hanji probably knew; doesn’t take a genius but she still was.   
“I need to tell you that thing.. from before.” Hanji nodded and sat down. A serious look on her face. “I know that I’ve been in your care for quite a while but the information you got..”

“was fake, yeah”

Her eyes whidened “You knew?”

“Well that was pretty obvious, I don’t know the facts though.. Respecting privacy as always” Hanji knew. She had known all along.  “so now it the time?”

She was glad actually. Tears shot in her eyes. She held Ymir’s hand tightly “yeah.. My name is Historia”

“Historia reiss huh?”  

She nodded happily. “Yeah.. I opened my eyes, Hanji, thank you for being there for me”

Hanji walked up to her and looked into her light eyes. “You know how parents always call their daughters something cute?”  She nodded “well I call you ‘hope for the new generation’ because that’s the best way to describe you, Historia. You are the prove there is still hope. People should be jealous of me, I get to see you and Ymir. I get to think that everything is going to be alright.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this quite shitty chapter (i'm still satisfied because the was produced in a writers block) and erm.. please comment
> 
> Ya'll have a storm coming in the next chap btw


	12. The burning truth.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pain.

Hope is a lot like a drug. It can kill you when you have an overdose without you ever noticing it. It blinds you so much that you wouldn’t even notice you’d get stabbed right through the heart. Hope will leave you unable to feel pain, until there’s no more left and reality hits you so hard you can’t take it.

Most subtile way to put it is; Hope is deadly, for either the mind or all of you.

Historia had been hopeful, she had been foolish, she had been drugged. Drugged by hazel eyes and freckles. A dark skinned woman with her tongue all over her skin. Red bite marks and promises about how they were going to survive or die together. And the other one had kept saying over and over again ‘I will protect you’ or ‘I’m strong and I won’t let anything hurt you’

Now I make a time skip. There were three men and one boy. The boy was no older than twelve, his eyes wide and a smile on his face. He was the kind of boy who gets to watch the homosexual men get hung and the Marias get shot down. He gets to draw victory signs with their blood and they call it education. Every time he recognizes his own, or his mother's eyes in the eyes of a victim he hears his father’s voice ‘they are evil, they are ruining us, they are disgusting beings’ but that’s not the worst, he hears the words ‘right son?’  too and he nods in real life. Sometimes he wakes up to himself nodding after a dream about dead bodies and then he smiles; he did the right thing, his father is proud of him.  He will be the men. The men raised him to be them. He was there, watching her and realizing that it was different from the way it usually was.

The girl was paler, paler than his own family. Young and pretty. Not a homosexual man or Maria.  “She fucked a Maria. She’s a slut, she fucked the Maria we shot, son, a woman”  He didn’t know that was possible but his father burned those words into her body.

She held out her screaming for about five minutes.  After that she passes out from pain. Her body naked. The men kept throwing water on top of her to wake her up. When she didn’t react they burned her, again and again and again. They ripped one nail off, that took five minutes and so they stopped. Too much attention for a queer slut.

Maria whore. Those were the words burned into her.

They cut one side of her light blond hair and then shaved ‘fag’ into it. He guessed it was because it was the shortest word they had to describe her but maybe it was because it was the best one too.

Somewhere the woke up, looked up at him with these big blue and beautiful eyes. She whimpers and pain and then vomits all over the floor and her own face. She coughs loudly, trying to to choke in it. Again, she shivers and cries. Her once beautifully white face covered in red spots.   “Disgusting”  one of the men mumbled. Then his father says “Come on boy, do it, I know you know what to do”

He watches the girl cry before he does it, maybe that’s the worst part. The way he didn’t kick on a swollen, black skinned face. No. He kicked on beautiful blue eyes on light skin. He kicked it three times. Until her eyes closed again and there were no cries in the room anymore. The room fell silent. Then there was laughing. “Waiting to see the look on that Maria’s face-” or such was said.

 

It was still dark when they dragged her outside to the nearest- and her- high school. A rose high school that also had Maria students that would see her. She was light. Usually there would be a fight. Usually they had to carry a man with all of them. Usually. Usually. Not now, no this girl was different.  

“By the wrists, boy” and so he did. He pulled the rope so tight it would bleed if she’d move. So right her hand would barely get any blood. He earned a “well done” as the other man hung her in front of the school.

She woke up again. She didn’t open her eyes. She only cried blood out of her thick eye and the she whispered “ymir” but they could all tell she was trying to scream. “Ymir, Ymir”

“Dad? She’s trying to tell something”

“That’s not a word. It’s a name, boy, a Maria name” That’s where his father hit her again, with a bat. He hit her again and again. And somewhere she looked up. Something burned in her eyes and no one saw it. Everyone saw weakness in the blue eyes but the boy couldn’t hear anything but “Ymir”. He couldn’t see anything but “ymir” in her eyes. When he went to sleep he heard a soft and sweet voice say “ymir, ymir, ymir, ymir” all over again. It sung him to sleep like it had had sung her into unconsciousness while they were hitting her over and over again.

* * *

 

The sun went up and there had people gathered around the naked angel-like woman hung from her arms. One blue eye and one pale one, both closed. No one moved.

Everyone stared at the blood falling from her neck over her breast.The words cut all over her body. Whore. Fag. Cuts looking like a cross, the sign of Maria.

A boy again. A boy trembling this time. Jean kirschtein looked to the other side of the crowd where a freckled boy stood, then he looked back at his new best friend and didn’t move. He didn’t see his best friend, he didn’t see a beautiful girl and sweet lover. He saw himself. He saw himself hanging from the building and his feet were glued to the ground.

Then he saw movement. A freckled boy pushing people away other people and taking out his jacket. He hung his jacket over the naked body, then started studying the ropes. Wounds beneath them. Too high for him to touch. No one to help him, just stares into his back. Even the person he loved most let him be, but he understood the way he handled.

The blonde was glued. He didn’t dare to walk up to his lover to help his best friend. He didn’t dare to pull himself down from the painful sight, he didn’t dare to put himself up there.

Still. His lover was hanging there too - in his mind- only then hung by his neck.

“Historia!”  A sound that could make everyone cry and whimper in fear. People were punched down. People moved out of the way as fast as they could. She was screaming, close to barking, near crying out. Near, or for real, but no one would let it sink in their minds;  there was water where water had never been before; on Ymir’s cheeks.

More people came out of the crowd. Young people with Roses tattooed on their bodies in obvious places. A boy named Eren, a woman named Mikasa. The always happy- even in time of war- couple was crying while walking up. Saying it was intense would be true. But it was hideous, everyone was shaking with ugliness -the other word for the truth.

“Eren”  The name we thought no Maria would ever speak was spoken by her. The strongest of all “hand me a your knife, I only have a gun”

Everyone. No exception. Trembled at the voice. They panicked and fell down in fear. Vomit.  “yeah”  Eren handed his knife over.  

“Back off”

Her hand was shivering too much to cut. She couldn’t come high enough to reach the rope because of the leg she was dragging behind her. She couldn’t see because of her own tears. Everyone stared.

A hand on her shoulder. “Ymir.”  The green eyes boy and hazel eyes woman both stared at the girl who had her eyes closed. Trying to figure out if she was breathing. The older one was bearably breathing anymore, she was choking but trying. Hell she was trying.

“You hold her legs and we’ll get her down”

Soon they were all pushed out of the way.  New men. Reiner and Berthold took the knife and walked up. Everyone was staring at the length. Ymir still hysterical, she held onto Historia’s legs and looked at the burn wounds.

Silence.

So loud.

Maria whore. Maria whore. Maria whore.

It was no ones fault but hers, she had been careless, she had gotten shot, she was a fucking Titan. So the other was fucking a titan. Hell, she loved a titan. Who the loves a Titan?

She felt the weight of the other girl gain and held her tight. So tight no one tried to get in between them. She put her down and checked her breath. Armin sat down next to her and put two fingers onto the bloody wounds where the rope had held her.  “Her heart is beating like it’s supposed to”

“Oh thank god, fuck thank god”  She cried onto the limp body while a wall was made. A wall made of Maria’s and Roses. Titans or not. They blocked everyone out and kept their eyes away from the toughest girl crying into their angel. Some swallowed the gross taste and tears away. Some tried to wash away the sight with tears.  One man was missing, not because he didn’t love, it was because he knew it was a fifty fifty chance it would have been him.  “wake up baby, just open your eyes..”

The thing is, we only get shocked when strong things break down. If a mountain moves, if the sun stops giving light, if buildings fall down. We fear when we kill the demon’s child. Because we did something incredibly dangerous. We don’t laugh. We wait.  That’s how humans work.

Ymir was the demon everyone wanted to get rid of, but no one wanted to piss off. Now she was weak they still  didn’t dare to get close. They realized that maybe with the strongest held high, there was hope.

Eventually Historia’s breath became steadier and she look became serener. She was wrapped up in Ymir’s clothes and Ymir was now half naked. No one wanted to look at the words burned and cut into Historia’s skin anymore. Ymir would never be able to not look at them though. They were stuck in her mind. Voices screamed these words in her mind all the time. Usually she’d wake up from the painful reality about who she was and what she did when she looked at Historia, now her being was burned into her lovers.   “Welcome back, princess”

* * *

 

Historia woke up when at home. She had gotten her there together with the other’s Rose Nationalistic friends and it was weird because it wasn’t. It was as if her friends realized; this was done by people like them, Rose was capable of such things because of Miscegenation or homosexuality. Somewhere Eren had asked her “why? Why would Historia go so far?”

΅I wish I knew, I wish I could stop us but that’s not how it works” The other took it. He didn’t even bother to ask more. He looked at the duo and believed, with all he had, that they had tried to stop themselves. What happened might have been the worst any of them had ever seen but it wasn’t the worst that could have happened. He was actually feeling Ymir lust for killing but all of them knew that the two had seen it coming.  “I just thought it would have been me, or that I had been there”

“Are you two really lovers, ymir?”

Ymir had looked up at them and stared. Her eyes were swollen and almost gone. They were

dark and Historia’s blood was on her face.  She just stared and they all knew, and so they walked away from them, left Ymir to focus on her own breathing.

The thing is; this woman was used to screwing up. Everyone knew this. She always did, not even ashamed of it. She did whatever, and later on she’d realize it sure as hell hadn’t been the greatest decision. It rarely mattered. She didn’t care much for herself, no matter how egocentric she was. She’d fuck herself up, she’d accept it, she’d ruin her life and live it. Maybe it was worth it? Maybe that was the reason she lived for herself. Because she couldn’t hold it against herself or anyone, accepting was always easy to her.

She ruined someone else's life and she thought it would be easy again. It wasn’t.

God she didn’t want Historia to ever wake up in this situation. She just wanted the other to laugh, brush some hair out of her face. This both seemed impossible, and not only because some parts of her hair were gone, words shaved into the short part.

Fag.

The word made her shiver as great as it had once made her laugh in all her holy cynicalness.

She took a scissor and kept cutting the short hair shorter until there was only a milimeter of hair; no word to be read.

Completely crazy; how she had come to the point she was torn between two, wanting to keep a person the way they were- sort hair, perfect skin, no insults, having the world-  yet not wanting to leave. Something had to give and it would never be her presence.

She had asked for it like that.  She had asked for the burns, bleeding wrists, social humiliation and fuck, even worse now that she realized this was possible, rape too.  The thought alone sickened her. Historia was hers. How could she let someone take and abuse that?

 

When hanji came home she could only say “I wasn’t there to do anything” and the awfully weak statement was followed by an desperate “Please don’t look at the rest of her body” because it held the truth behind everyone's silence. Hanji seemed broken, sad, but not surprised. Ymir truly wished she could have said more but what was there to say? Sorry getting your daughter abused? Sorry for having sex with the girl you take care of? Could she tell about the situation they had been in? It most likely wouldn’t change anything, if anything it would make it worse.

Hanji - who was apparently more prepared than Ymir because she had thought she would be the one getting killed or abused- gave her a few orders and this was surprisingly calm. The orders were unexpected:   Don’t kill anyone (she indeed had this planned);  Take her away from Rose for now ,  and lastly; make her feel like she has a family again.

All of those commands seemed stupid to her but the least she could do in the damn situation was listen. So she did. As soon as Hanji left her alone she started planning the safest route and place for them.

Then eventually the terrifying happened, Historia woke up. FIrst the slow breathing stopped, then she breathed in only and as soon as she saw the tanned woman close to her she smacked her arms away with wide eyes. “Historia” The woman seemed deaf. She looked around her in a disturbing pace.  “baby, you are safe now“ With wide eyes Historia seemed to recognize her face as the one of the woman she loved, not her voice yet, but even she didn t recognize that.

“Ymir I’m so glad you are here I-” She wanted to push hair behind her ear. First mistake. Softly her thin fingers touched the bald side of her head, then faster, in panic, then the long side.  It was as if only then all the pain started sinking in, or maybe it was just reality, the memory. Maybe those were all the same.

She glanced at both her wrists, touched her face and then gagged. Her eyes were wide and tearful and her mouth closed.  

“baby I-” As fast as she could blink Historia pulled her sheets down and fell they both fell into silence. Her mind screamed as she watched Historia read the words about them. Again. She saw how her mind progressed the words and realized what they said.

She realized all of it and she seemed to break until she looked straight into Ymir’s eyes.  “I’m alive”

Now I ask you, reader, if the person you loved most had curses about you burned into them, would you be able to bear it? Would you accept both of you being alive but them hurt as a better outcome than you death? Of course. Yeah. But the real question is; would you be able to stay sane enough to realize it could have been worse?

Maybe in this case living was their only comfort.

“That’s right” She was ashamed of how breathless and hushed her voice sounded. To compromise it she pushed her chair back with more noise than needed and started spitting through Historia’s stuff. Not a second longer would she let herself think, see and not move. It would be her mental death to realize more than needed.

The blue shirt she took first was Historia’s favourite. Then, right after, she took a big woolen white sweater, two light skirts, few more shirts and then the books she was reading in. Historia’s eyes were on her as she shoved all of it in a back.  

“Ymir..” she let the second pair of shoes fall at the sound of historia’s broken and weak voice.

“Hanji told me to take-”

“It’s fine Ymir, don’t explain, I trust you with my life” Still. She still trusted her. The word was missing, she chose not to use this ords, knowing all the consequences this word held. Choosing to make the sentence less powerful and less painful.  “but right now I just want you to show me and you still love me with this broken body”

Almost instantly she stopped and walked over to Historia. She let her hand slide through the smallest hairs instead of awkwardly using her other hand to shave some behind her ear. She was going to show the story behind the hair. Because honestly, isn’t everything with a story more beautiful?  Fuck, she’d show Historia and push so much love into that perfect but bleeding head of hers.

She kissed the others tempel, her nose, her lips, all so softly it felt completely new. Just trying to keep the other from falling apart in her arms.  “we’ll move to my place for a while” she pushed their foreheads together until they were breathing in each others air. Historia lovingly closed her eyes while she stared at the others swollen lips. Tasted the others air. She was alive. “It will be nice. I can get you books and tea.. I’ll stay with you. I’m never leaving you alone again” It was a creepy promise to say the least but the other just nodded.

The darker lips slid over the pale arms and eventually she left a peck on her hand “I’ll carry you there”

“Ymir, you can barely walk” They looked at each other for a while. The situation was indeed completely hopeless. Two people who could barely walk running away together. What a joke. It would have actually been funny if their lives weren’t in complete danger.

“Marco.. We’ll walk for a bit and stop at Marco’ Ymir shoved the last bit of stuff into Historia’s bag awkwardly “I’d ask you, once again, if you want to go back on loving me but it’s too late now”  Neither one seemed to mind. Historia even smiled kindly. If they could go back they’d handle differently but they’d be unable to stay apart. Both knew. So they both didn’t mention any regret or stupidities.  

Ymir handed Historia one of her darker and cheaper sets of clothes “Can you walk?”

“I don’t know”

“Sit up straight first and try to feel your legs.. I’ll get you some tea, water and painkillers”

Historia did as she was told and looked like pain shot through her body. Tears shot into her eyes but she bit them away as if they were the enemy. Once she calmed down she answered “You said painkillers were useless when you were shot”

“I lied.”

 

The road to Marco’s house, which was almost in the middle of the road from Maria to Rose,  was long and tiresome. They had never noticed how far it was until then. It didn’t matter, it was the road that felt safe a familiar now that they were together even if their legs were barely keeping them. Historia’s skin felt tight because of the burns, with every step it felt like she was ripping them open further and further. It was as if for every tear Historia couldn’t stop, Ymir felt need to say “I’m not hurting, rely on me” Which was the most obvious lie ever told. Ymir had gone from “I only live for myself” to “Historia, let me help” and she was still full of bullshit.

When Marco’s house came into view Marco was already standing right in front of the house. They hadn’t told him anything but he just knew. Marco always knew a lot more than he should.  He rushed their way and held Historia up right while amazingly ignoring Ymir’s half hearted glare. She should be thankful but the fact that she wasn’t able to protect Historia better than others hit her like a bitch.   “I was waiting for you, we could put Historia on a horse and then walk on together”

“I’m not taking you with me, my respect is what keeps me safe”  Histroria would have argued her on this if she had been feeling well but she hadn’t spoken ever since they left the house and every word said was burshed off by a nod. It seemed as if she was remembering more of what had happened every second. Maybe she was. So the let the other be.

“I have a gun, I can kill with my eyes closed”

Marco did nothing but sigh “Tomorrow.. stay the night”

It was a statement and not a request, so he lead them to their barn and in there he started a small fire for them to sit near. It wasn’t much, it was more than enough still. When Marco left Historia and she were lying against each other,  her arms now around her lover and the silence of the countryside calming them endlessly. It was funny how- if not told- you wouldn’t be able to know if this was Maria or Rose.

She put wood on the fire while Marco’s little brothers ran in. Laughing. They were tanned, dark haired and happy. Marco said they were ‘tall for their age’ too. They were proud to be a healthy family.  “Hey are you family with that pale boy with the silly hair?”  One had asked to which Historia had laughed as much as she was capable of. “Something like that” she managed to lie in between her heavy breaths.

“Marco said ‘don’t talk to them’!” the other yelled as the boy started telling things about Jean so quickly no one could actually understand a word he said.

“She’s family with my friend!”

“He is Marco’s friend, you are stupid” They both had dropped what they were holding- a bottle of clean water and food from their land-  and were now yelling at each other about what Jean was to them. They were loud and obnoxious and maybe this was exactly what Historia needed as she failed at her usual ‘I’m happy and perfect’ act.

That evening, when Marco came to sit with them after bringing some medicine for burn wounds she asked him where Jean was. “He has lost it, he didn’t look at me after Historia “ his voice answered hushed.

Historia was sleeping on her lap and the way she held onto the other made them both wonder if maybe they should wake her up to replace whatever terrible dream she was having. They didn’t.  “Give him time”

“Yeah I will, things like this happened before and he handled the same. I believe he’s mainly afraid of Eren and the others finding out though.”

“Maybe that’ll turn out to be good thing”

Marco shrugged “Maybe for you and Historia but they don’t love him like they love her” Marco was mixing herbs together while talking. His face never moving up to look at them. His thoughts seemed elsewhere; with Jean, perhaps?  “Can I show you something to prepare and explain some things?”

“I was born prepared for anything..” Silence fell “But explain you may.”

Marco nodded and stood up. Slowly and carefully he took out his own shirt and let it fall next to his herbs. They both swallowed too heavy.

Marco was covered in burn wounds from his hip to his neck. Half of his body was covered in them.  “Titans.. Titans burned me after I held them back from stealing, then took what they needed anyway” Ymir looked down. “I know you weren’t there, no one was. Luckily”  He smiled down at his own body. Then he smiled at Ymir. He smiled at the way she had changed since that time, he smiled at the way she held another, the way they were still alive.  “They don’t look like horrid wounds anymore, right?”

“I’ve seen worse” Ymir halfheartedly managed to choke out.  

Marco took his shirt and pushed the medicine and herbs her way “Give her the medicine”

That night she didn’t close an eye. Every sound- the wind, the dogs, the cows and chicken, the rain and yelling children- wanted to hurt Historia in her mind. If she hadn’t had trust issues way before Historia, she’d sure have it now. She’d only ever trust one person.

Historia’s insane shaking and sweating made her try and hum lullabies she had learned when she first joined the Titans. The power behind the songs was exactly what they needed. “Chanel the angers swelling inside you, fighting the boundary until you break through, deep in your soul there’s no hesitation, so make yourself the one they all fear”

She dreamed , with her eyes wide open, that one day the words written on Historia would be a trophy. A sign that they were on the right side of history. There was a really big chance they’d die, a small chance they’d win but there was no chance they’d lose forever. No war lasts forever.

The smell of smoke was strong when they woke up. CHickens were making enough noise to wake up the whole neighborhood if only they had one. Dogs reacted to the chicken, horses to the dogs and like that her love was suddenly wide awake. Well wide.. she moaned and held her tighter.

“Breakfast!” One of Marco’s little sisters barged in and put two plates with eggs down. “Don’t tell me you don’t like eggs because the chicken will probably attack you.”

Historia tried to smile. She had never looked so bad. Her eye had swollen so much her eyeball had basically disappeared, some of her wounds had turned yellow in the healing progress and her smile was far from heartedly.  And guess what? The assholic, playing lesbian still loved her. She still thought their love was most beautiful. She still wanted to kiss her.

“Thank you” The blonde whispered while pushing herself up to eat.

Well, she pretended to. The girl left and Historia ate nothing. Eventually she made Ymir eat off of them because she was obsessed with being kind. Ymir wasn’t. She started walking through the stall and searched for a steady and small horse. Then eventually when she had chosen she walked with the horse and studied how calm it was. Calm enough, beautiful and strong.   “Historia let’s go”

She gathered the herbs Marco had given them and lifted Historia on the horse. When they left the house she could feel Marco’s eyes stare at them through the window. She could hear his disappointed thoughts echo in her mind. The everlasting help the family gave had never gotten back at them. They were the living prove karma didn’t exist, even though Jean had hidden the feeling for a while.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.. it’s great Marco let us use his horse”

“Yeah, it is” she lied through her teeth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me forever! (also sorry I was in thailand) 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this (probably not sorry it's depressing) 
> 
> xx


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